Movie Review: A Good Woman (2004)

Genre: Romantic Dramedy  

Director: Mike Barker  

Starring: Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Wilkinson  

Running Time: 93 minutes  

Synopsis: In New York City, professional mistress Mrs. Erlynne (Helen Hunt) runs out of other-women's-husbands willing to fund her lifestyle. She relocates to Amalfi in Italy, and joins a wealthy and gossipy English community including newlyweds Meg and Robert Windermere (Scarlett Johansson and Mark Umbers). The dashing Lord Darlington (Stephen Campbell Moore) intends to seduce Meg, and finds an opening when Mrs. Erlynne occupies Robert's attention. Meanwhile, the exceptionally rich and many-times-divorced Tuppy (Tom Wilkinson) believes he can finally find happiness with Mrs. Erlynne.

What Works Well: This adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1892 play Lady Windermere's Fan benefits from picturesque Italian locations occupied by the idle rich, and attractive 1930s-era sets, costumes, hairstyles, and make-up. Tom Wilkinson as Tuppy delivers a wistful performance as a soft-at-heart man who has everything except a worthy life companion. Director Mike Barker hustles events along at a brisk pace, and the central twist adds zest.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot only works with a base level of across-the-board obtuse behaviour. Neither Helen Hunt nor Scarlett Johansson appear fully comfortable in their roles, and apart from Wilkinson, the other male actors mechanically go through the motions. Delivered by a hovering Greek chorus of secondary gossipers, the script is over-burdened with Wilde's witticisms, with most landing as self-satisfied clutter.

Key Quote:

Mrs. Erlynne: If we're always guided by other people's thoughts, what's the point of having our own?

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Movie Review: Valkyrie (2008)

Genre: World War Two Drama Thriller  

Director: Bryan Singer  

Starring: Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp  

Running Time: 121 minutes  

Synopsis: Already disgruntled with the Nazi regime, the German army's Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) loses an arm and an eye in a North Africa battle. He is subsequently recruited into a group of officers conspiring to overthrow Hitler, including General Olbricht (Bill Nighy), General Beck (Terence Stamp), and General von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh). However, the crafty General Fromm (Tom Wilkinson) remains staunchly non-committal. Stauffenberg conceives a plan to assassinate the Führer, blame the SS for an attempted coup, and activate Operation Valkyrie, a contingency protocol to deploy the reserve army.

What Works Well: Based on actual events, this brisk historical thriller enjoys good pacing and ever increasing tension fueled by risk, courage, and a sense of duty. Director Bryan Singer stages the action within quality sets and hustles tactical details along with admirable efficiency, only pausing to enjoy a couple of preceding assassination attempts. The third act is dedicated to the centrepiece July 20, 1944 bombing-plus-coup, Tom Cruise's confident charisma enhancing a faithful recreation of a chaotically tumultuous day.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite the efforts of a stellar supporting cast, too many men-in-uniforms jostle for limited screen time, devoid of any depth outside their peripheral plot involvement. Consequently, their vision for a new Germany is opaque.

Conclusion: A worthy tribute to the cause of thwarting evil.

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Movie Review: Girl With A Pearl Earring (2003)

A drama set in the art world, Girl With A Pearl Earring is visually beautiful and emotionally deliberate, but also slow and sparse.

In the Dutch Republic of 1665, Griest (Scarlett Johansson) is a young woman dispatched by her struggling family to work as a lowly maid in the Delft home of painter Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth). She dedicates herself to household tasks under the guidance of senior maid Tanneke (Joanna Scanlan). Both Vermeer and his wealthy patron Pieter van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson) notice Griest's beauty, intelligence, and curiosity, while she starts a romance with butcher's son Pieter (Cillian Murphy).

Vermeer paints slowly and methodically, placing a financial strain on the household and causing tension in his marriage to Catharina (Essie Davis), who is perpetually pregnant. His mother-in-law Maria Thins (Judy Parfitt) also lives with them, and is more pragmatic. In the privacy of his studio, Vermeer starts discussing painting techniques with Griest, and secretly asks her to help him purchase materials and mix colours. When van Ruijven demonstrates lustful intent and insists that Griest be the subject of Vermeer's next painting, the pressure on her intensifies.

An adaptation of the 1999 fictional book by Tracy Chevalier with a screenplay by Olivia Hetreed, Girl With A Pearl Earring constructs an imagined narrative around the Dutch painter's most famous work. The story of a lowly maid unintentionally causing sexual tension and becoming the subject of a masterpiece is of only average interest. Director Peter Webber therefore leans on style to enhance the substance, and for art aficionados familiar with the painter's signature elements, the movie is a treat.

Vermeer is known for interiors dominated by browns, greys, and yellows, punctuated by exotic and expensive earth-based colours including lapis, and expressive use of light. Supplemented by a sumptuous Alexandre Desplat music score, Webber designs almost every frame to resemble a Vermeer, with prominent use of candles and natural light streaming through windows, and a focus on inspirations found within the home environment.

Which is just as well. The character interactions are slow, moody, and often unfold in the silence of paintings. Scarlett Johansson as Griest floats wordlessly through Vermeer's home, her expressive eyes absorbing a better class of household than her own, her smile-incapable mouth fixed in a pouty expression as she causes tension by simply existing and obeying orders. Colin Firth equally uses an economy of words, and hides behind an artist's bottled passion to avoid revealing much of a person. The predictable outcome is plenty of pregnant pauses and soulful stares leading to...more pregnant pauses and more soulful stares.

The film does better demonstrating the mechanics of a maid's life in a European city of the 1660s. Griest's daily routine of hard scrubbing, market shopping, and ingredient chopping yields sore and blistered hands. Webber also does well teasing out a class structure of rules and limitations, wife Catherine clinging to strict applications of roles and responsibilities as a desperate emotional defence, while the Vermeer family demonstrates servile deference to patron van Ruijven, who essentially keeps them alive.

A few side plot threads add modest interest but ultimately little relevance, including the romance with butcher's son Pieter and a running (and, of course, silent) feud between Griest and one of Vermeer's daughters. Girl With A Pearl Earring is more about artistry and less about profundity, in this case a reasonable enough allocation of emphasis.



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Movie Review: Burden (2018)

A racism drama, Burden explores a small community plagued by white supremacists and one man's personal struggle to build a different life.

The setting is the small town of Laurens, South Carolina in 1996. Local Klu Klux Klan leader Tom Griffin (Tom Wilkinson) opens The Redneck Shop as a museum to celebrate white supremacy. His protege is Mike Burden (Garrett Hedlund), an army veteran abandoned as a child and raised by Tom. Black Reverend Kennedy (Forest Whitaker) is the head of the local Baptist Church and resists the supremacists with a message of love.

The Redneck Shop heightens tensions between the black community and Klan members, including incidents of racial abuse and violence. In the meantime Mike meets single mom Judy (Angela Riseborough) and they start a relationship, with Mike providing a father figure to Judy's young son Franklin. But Judy cannot tolerate being in a relationship with a Klan member, and asks Mike to make a choice, leading to grim consequences.

Based on a true story, Burden ventures into forgotten small town America bypassed by education, employment and economic prospects, where the white population refer to themselves as white trash. Writer and director Andrew Heckler creates a working class milieu devoid of hope and ambition, with the KKK's Tom Griffin and Reverend Kennedy engaged in an ongoing battle for a community's soul. Emotions are always close to the surface and Burden is never subtle, mirroring Laurens as a town stuck between a past that never left and a future that never arrived.

Here a man like Griffin can hold sway over all businesses and the police, and is free to openly practice his virulent form of hatred. He is a master at poisoning hearts and minds at a young age, then wields financial influence to exert continued control. Tom Wilkinson combines cold with smiley, oozing a pure representation of menace. In the opposite corner Forest Whitaker juggles faith with pragmatism as the Baptist reverend Kennedy, his family's patience running thin as he defies naked hate with gestures of kindness.

Caught in the middle is Mike Burden, and Heckler crafts a forceful arc for a simple man confronting deeply instilled demons, helped by internal fortitude and external support. Barely educated, functionally raised by the Klan and physically damaged during his army service, he is trusted enough by Tom to hold the lease to The Redneck Shop. But Burden's soul awakens once subjected to influences exerted purposefully by Judy and innocently by young Franklin and his black friend. Garrett Hedlund conveys Burden's fatigue as he questions all he was raised to believe, just as his gaunt frame wearily navigates odd angles caused by army injuries. 

Burden offers a spark of hope but also clear-eyed realism. One man does stumble upon a moment of reckoning, but a detestable movement remains deeply rooted.



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Movie Review: In The Bedroom (2001)

A family drama with crime elements, In The Bedroom quietly explores a marriage under severe stress, and emotional endurance tested by a frustrating justice system.

Matt and Ruth Fowler (Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek) are a middle-aged couple living in the lobster fishing community of Camden, Maine. Matt is a doctor and a veteran of the Navy, while Ruth is a music teacher, and together they are slightly bewildered as their college-aged son Frank (Nick Stahl) enjoys a summer romance with older divorcee Natalie (Marisa Tomei). She has two young kids from no-good ex-husband Richard Strout (William Mapother), the scion of the family operating the local cannery.

Ruth is worried Frank will throw away his college future to spend more time with Natalie, but Matt is more accommodating of his son's liaison. When Richard returns and starts to harass Natalie, Frank feels obligated to intervene, triggering events that will test every aspect of Matt and Ruth's lives.

Adding further details to the plot summary would spoil a brooding story of loss, rage and revenge crackling with understated tension. The seemingly routine travails of a small family residing in an idyllic seaside community take a sharp turn into tragedy, rocking the foundations of Matt and Ruth's marriage and flooding their bedroom sanctuary with grief and self-doubt. Director Todd Field co-wrote the script with Robert Festinger as an adaptation of an Andre Dubus short story, and creates an adult-oriented drama with ever-increasing turmoil punctuated by short and sharp eruptions of violence. 

The narrative draws strength from silence and the contrasting characters of Matt and Ruth. He keeps his emotions bottled and approaches every situation with detached calmness. She is a more expressive artist, carrying the weight of worry and more openly disapproving of their son Frank's fling with Natalie. When their world falls apart the creeping hostility between them becomes an impenetrable wall of unstated anger and coiled frustration.

The film is long at 131 minutes, and in the second half Field tests the material's depth with some repetitive scenes underlining already established dynamics. And despite the length, a couple of characters fade out of relevance. But superb performances from Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek, both approaching career peaks, help overcome the slower patches. They are never better than when Matt and Ruth unleash their bottled-up anger at each other in a savage exchange of accusations. The supporting cast includes Karen Allen in a small role as a tough defence attorney.

In The Bedroom is where intimacy and trust reside. Faced with calamity and injustice, Matt and Ruth also need to create space for painful truths and new secrets. 



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Movie Review: Belle (2013)

A costume drama and romance, Belle courageously addresses discrimination issues through the lens of a unique young woman seeking her place in a disciplined social structure.

In England of the late 1700s, Navy Captain Sir John Lindsay (Matthew Goode) entrusts his half-Black daughter Dido Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) to the care of his uncle William Murray (Tom Wilkinson), Earl of Mansfield and the country's Lord Chief Justice, and his wife (Emily Watson). Belle's Black mother died young, and Sir John soon dies at sea, leaving Belle with a good inheritance.

She grows up surrounded by luxury but segregated by her colour, forbidden from joining formal dinners but otherwise enjoying life at the lavish Murray estate. Belle forms a strong bond of sisterhood with the Earl's other grand niece Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon).

Belle is intrigued by the Zong slave ship legal case involving the intentional killing of slaves by drowning. The resultant cargo insurance dispute is being adjudicated by her great uncle, with the country awaiting his decision. Belle also attracts the romantic attention of the passionate John Davinier (Sam Reid), the son of a vicar and an aspiring lawyer interested in a more just society. But another suitor complicates Belle's life, as she challenges a multitude of societal rules.

Based on a true story but with plenty of artistic licence to fill in facts lost to history, Belle is intelligent, engrossing and uplifting. Inspired by the actual 1779 painting of Belle and her cousin Elizabeth by artist David Martin, director Amma Asante and writer Misan Sagay create a multi-dimensional tableau of upper-echelon society in the Georgian era, where every action is strictly defined by classism and protocol. 

In this world Belle is an intriguing misfit, a half-Black independently wealthy product of an illegitimate union, and a blood descendant of one of the country's most powerful men. The context of intersecting currents colliding to shake loose kernels of societal awakening provides rich grounds for a rewarding narrative, and Asante quickly gets to work, teasing out threads of understated conflict. 

Within the Earl of Mansfield's house Belle faces contradictions, afforded a privileged upbringing but banished from the dinner table. As young women ready to be introduced to London's society in search of suitors, Belle and Elizabeth (penniless after being abandoned by her father) face different challenges and prejudices ranging from snootiness to racism. John Davinier is the disruptive presence, looked down upon as merely a vicar's son, but nevertheless intent on leaving his mark both on Belle's heart and his country.

Far from content with traditional costume drama conflicts and affairs of the heart, the film strides into the history of slavery in Great Britain, and Sagay's script demonstrates a deft touch to introduce the Zong incident, featuring mass murder, slaves-as-cargo, on-board disease, allegations of a water shortage, and an insurance dispute, in remarkably comprehensible morsels. The Earl of Mansfield is the rock around which all the waters churn, and Tom Wilkinson expertly hints at sparks of humanity shining through the gruff exterior of the Lord Chief Justice, tied to laws but with the power to change them.

The third act brings Belle's personal story to the crossroads of her nation's history. Even in a most regimented society, willing provocateurs ensure change is a constant.



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Movie Review: The Catcher Was A Spy (2018)

A World War Two drama and adventure, The Catcher Was A Spy captures wartime cloak-and-dagger antics in Europe, but the plot substance is mediocre at best.

During the war former professional baseball catcher Moe Berg (Paul Rudd) is working with the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), as the Allies try to gauge Germany's progress in developing an atomic bomb. In flashback, Berg's history is sketched in. As a ball player Moe enjoyed a long career but was a misfit in the locker room. Highly educated, well-traveled and fluent in numerous languages, he maintains a relationship with Estella (Sienna Miller) and may also be a bisexual.

Once the war starts he lands an OSS position working with commander Bill Donovan (Jeff Daniels). He is assigned to the team tasked with investigating and possibly assassinating German scientist Werner Heisenberg (Mark Strong), who is suspected of leading the German atomic bomb development efforts. Moe joins the army's Robert Furman (Guy Pearce) and Dutch scientist Samuel Goudsmit (Paul Giamatti) as they connect first with Italian Professor Amaldi (Giancarlo Giannini) then Swiss Professor Scherrer (Tom Wilkinson) to try and determine Heisenberg's role and intentions.

Based on true events, The Catcher Was A Spy is reasonably intriguing as an almost old-fashioned military spy yarn, but never reaches any emotional or cerebral heights. Director Ben Lewin succeeds on the vintage look and feel elements, bathing the action in warm yellows and browns and finding dark but glistening and handsome European settings for the shadow games. An interlude on the front lines of the Italian campaign offers suitably thrilling combat action.

But the content and characters are less interesting. Berg is presented as smart and capable but also an impenetrable enigma, and in the hands of Paul Rudd he remains an aloof and distant central character. Robert Rodat's screenplay, adapting the book by Nicholas Dawidoff, is confined to superficial notes, unable to round Berg into a properly defined person or break through to his motivations. Meanwhile, Nobel Prize winner Heisenberg's real-world career and achievements are fairly well known, compromising the tension in the core mission of Berg's spy career.

The cast is rich in talent, but the many famous names are given relatively little to do. Sienna Miller is stuck in the thankless neglected woman role, while Jeff Daniels and Guy Pearce stay close to stereotypical military men. No fewer than four scientists are brought to life by Mark Strong, Paul Giamatti, Giancarlo Giannini and Tom Wilkinson, and Strong's interpretation of Heisenberg emerges as the physicist most deserving of more screen time. Connie Neilsen appears in one scene as a haranguing dinner party guest, perhaps for the sole purpose of adding another female role.

Lewin tidies up the drama in an efficient 98 minutes, a case of decent panache hustling in search of essence.



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Movie Review: The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (2005)

A courtroom drama and supernatural horror movie, The Exorcism Of Emily Rose combines two genres with decent results.

Father Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson) is arrested and accused of causing the death through neglect of a young woman named Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter), who died from malnutrition and self inflicted wounds after she entrusted Moore with her care and stopped taking medication. Moore refuses a plea bargain and insists the case go to court. His archdiocese retain Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) as his defence lawyer. Ethan Thomas (Campbell Scott) is the hard nosed prosecutor, with Judge Brewster (Mary Beth Hurt) presiding.

Through witness testimony Emily's story is revealed in flashback. Originally from a devout rural family, she was in her college dorm when she felt attacked and invaded by a malevolent spirit. Diagnosed with epilepsy, episodes of severe body contortions and hallucinations persisted despite medical intervention. In desperation her family turned to Moore, who believed Emily was possessed. As the trial proceeds, Erin starts to experience disturbing late night incidents.

Based on the true story of German woman Anneliese Michel, The Exorcism Of Emily Rose is a reasonably effective exploration of a collision between science and religion, with generous doses of outright horror. Director and co-writer Scott Derrickson efficiently merges two familiar genres that rarely share the same space.

Half the film is a fairly robust courtroom debate, with the expected cut and thrust between prosecution and defence under the watchful gaze of a patient judge. The other half features plenty of straightforward horror, Emily's descent into a hell of either possession or disease played for maximum shock, plus the bonus of Erin confronting spooky after-midnight scares of her own once she takes the case.

Because the movie opens with Emily already dead and Moore on trial for neglect, the scenes documenting her trauma carry a relatively contained threat level. Derrickson therefore uses extreme physical angularity to amplify shock value, with actress Jennifer Carpenter pulling off some creative contortionist moves. The tension is marginally elevated when Erin and Moore start to experience things going bump in the night in her apartment and his prison cell respectively, the present-day scares occurring concurrently with the trial and carrying the menace of an undefined outcome.

Back in the courtroom, the mechanics of the trial are often suspect with plenty of hurried evidence and new witnesses introduced haphazardly. But Derrickson manages to provide a balanced view of the charges. Prosecutor Thomas presents a forthright case of a desperately sick girl taken off her medication and allowed to suffer due to ill-informed and unscientific religious intervention. Erin counters by introducing doubt as to whether the diagnosis of epilepsy was ever accurate to begin with, and brings in an expert on global incidents of possession to back-up Moore's beliefs.

Emily's exorcism is notionally both the beginning and the end of the film, a harrowing fight between good and evil erupting over an innocent young woman's body. She was either saved or destroyed by religion, the definitive conclusion a matter of imperfect evidence and degrees of belief.

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Movie Review: Denial (2016)

A courtroom drama centred on the Holocaust, Denial explores the difficulty of debunking ridiculous conspiracy theorists.

It's 1994, and in Atlanta, Georgia, American professor of Holocaust studies Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) writes a book condemning the lies of Holocaust denier David Irving (Timothy Spall), a British historian specializing in Nazi Germany, and a fan of Adolf Hitler. In London, Irving files a libel lawsuit against Lipstadt. To mount a defence she turns to celebrated lawyer Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott), who represented Princess Diana, and his partner Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson).

As part of their case preparations Deborah and Richard visit the remains of the Auschwitz concentration camp and meet with Holocaust researchers. Julius and Rampton clash with Deborah on whether she should testify or not, and on whether Holocaust survivors should be called as witnesses. In 2000 the libel case finally makes its way to court, creating a media circus, with Irving representing himself.

Based on a true story as published in Lipstadt's book and directed by Mick Jackson, Denial is a relatively low-key affair, despite tackling one of history's worst atrocities. Due to England's rather eccentric libel laws, the onus is on the defendant to prove their statements as factual, resulting in the bizarre necessity for Lipstadt and her team to justify calling Irving a liar because, well, the Holocaust indeed did happen. Towards this quest the film achieves and sustains a modest level of engagement, but never rises to any heights.

A couple of problems hold Denial back. The first is the mismatch in resources and talent invested in each side of the legal battle. Jackson is only interested in Lipstadt and her well-resourced team containing some of the top legal minds in Britain. On the opposite side of the aisle Irving is a frumpy, lonely presence with no support, and the film never delves into his thinking or preparations, essentially defanging the antagonist. Resources do not necessarily equate to success, but a heavyweight with a full entourage will rarely lose to an untrained lightweight.

Another obstacle for the film is the central character silenced in her own story. Most of the tension is derived from Lipstadt disagreeing with her legal team's lean and scholarly strategy to keep the focus on Irving's lies. The lawyers prevent her from testifying and resist her advocacy for Holocaust survivors to appear as witnesses. Begrudgingly Lipstadt has the good sense to recognize that she is a professor and her lawyers are the courtroom experts, but this also means that for most of the second half of the film Denial is about grey lawyers doing their thing. Wilkinson as the barrister Rampton shines in these scenes, but he is always a secondary character in the story.

Nevertheless, there is still plenty to admire. Jackson delivers a taut 110 minutes of drama, keeping the focus on the case across seven years from 1994 to 2000. The scenes at Auschwitz are suitably affecting. Weisz and Spall join Wilkinson in delivering sturdy performances, and the film manages to throw in a minor source of uncertainty near the climax, raising the question of whether a man who believes his own lies is actually lying or not.

Denial is a worthwhile story told with genuine heart, but a case of proving a buffoon is a buffoon can only carry so much weight.

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Movie Review: Batman Begins (2005)

A superhero origins story, Batman Begins kicks off the trilogy with an engrossing and cerebral character-centred experience.

In Gotham City, a young Bruce Wayne has a traumatic encounter with bats, then witnesses his parents' murder during a mugging. Wracked by guilt, Wayne (Christian Bale) abandons his family's wealth and heads out into the world, living a life of squalor and crime. Dumped into a remote prison in Central Asia, he is rescued by Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson), who oversees his combat training and inducts Wayne into the League of Shadows, an organization of elite warriors led by the mysterious Ra's al Ghul. Once Wayne learns the League's real agenda, he abandons them and returns to Gotham to fight crime on his own terms.

With help from long-time family butler Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), head of the Applied Science Division at Wayne Enterprises, Bruce gradually adopts the crime-fighting persona of Batman. He keeps his mission a secret from childhood friend Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), now an idealistic Assistant District Attorney. Wayne embarks on a quest to both reclaim control of Wayne Enterprises and rid Gotham of corruption, starting with violent crime lord Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson). He recruits honest police lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and uncovers a vast psychotic drugs conspiracy involving psychologist Dr. Crane (Cillian Murphy), a villain known only as Scarecrow, and an unexpected powerful mastermind.

A big screen reboot of the Batman mythology, Batman Begins is an exquisite effort from director and co-writer Christopher Nolan. Committed to a surprisingly bright palette and an emphasis on people rather than action, Nolan creates a seminal example of what a smart comic superhero adaptation can achieve. Batman Begins first and foremost engages the mind and forgoes cheap thrills, and the origins story goes a long way towards grounding the film in the person of Bruce Wayne rather than the antics of a man in a costume.

The 140 minutes are surprisingly brisk, and despite some jumping around in time Nolan tidily breaks down the narrative into three parts. The backstory is the longest and best, rich in the details of a young Bruce experiencing the trauma of being trapped in a well, triggering a close encounter with bats, with a direct line from that experience to the death of his beloved parents. His formative years are then scattered on a life in search of any meaning in the company of other lost souls, until the intervention of Ducard and subsequent training as an elite warrior.

The second act focuses on Wayne defining his mission in life, buttressed by Alfred and supplied by Lucius on his way to assembling the raw material for what makes a Batman. Both Alfred and Lucius carry echoes of the past with strong links to the legacy of Bruce's father, and a large part of Batman Begins' appeal resides in the continued multi-generational commitment to do right. The finale is what can be expected, the true villains making themselves known and triggering an opera of mayhem with Batman improvising on the fly to save his beloved Gotham.

On the way to the transition Nolan has plenty of fun providing backstories to everything from the Batcave to the Batmobile, with detours to explain the origins of the suit, the mask and the emergency light signal. This is a true beginnings story, and nothing is left undefined.

Christian Bale slips into the role comfortably, displaying enough emotional depth to play up the emphasis on the individual rather than the role. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer (a slimy executive at Wayne Enterprises) and Cillian Murphy ensure that every key role is bolstered by a serious talent boost. Only Katie Holmes is overwhelmed, with a difficult, underwritten role and an unconvincing performance.

Batman Begins is a storytelling masterpiece, a fascinating crime fighter finally receiving his deserved high quality big screen production.

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Movie Review: Jenny's Wedding (2015)

A coming out drama, Jenny's Wedding is a poorly constructed lightweight mess.

In Cleveland, Jenny (Katherine Heigl) has never revealed to her family that she is a lesbian. She now decides to get married to her long-time partner and roommate Kitty (Alexis Bledel), and works up the courage to have the difficult conversations with her mother Rose (Linda Emond) and father Eddie (Tom Wilkinson).

Rose and Eddie react poorly, and Rose demands that Jenny keep her sexual orientation a secret so as not create embarrassment to the family. With Jenny's sister Anne (Grace Gummer) and brother Michael (Matthew Metzger) initially kept in the dark, the miscommunication only results in a worsening spiral of gossip, secrets and cover-ups within the family and with close friends and neighbours, until Jenny snaps, confronts her parents and decides to bluntly come out to everyone.

An independent production directed and written by Mary Agnes Donoghue, Jenny's Wedding is well intentioned but also unfortunately poorly written and only has enough content for about 20 minutes of screen time. The difficulties of coming out in a relatively conservative Midwest suburban community are worth exploring, but the the story painfully lacks substance, imagination and nuance.

The linear narrative clearly heads towards a final hug fest, but Jenny's Wedding struggles mightily to make it to the 90 minute mark, and features plenty of cringe-worthy, half-complete dialogue scenes pretending to be profound but mainly falling flat. Distressed parents Rose and Eddie have pillow talk conversations including:

Eddie:  All you can do...is what you do.
Rose: What?
Eddie: All you can do is what you do.
Rose: What does that mean?
Eddie: It means what it means.

Late in the proceedings Eddie and his best buddy and fellow firefighter Denny (Sam McMurray) have an awkward talk-it-out scene climaxing with this stupefying exchange:

Denny: We've known each other a long time and...if I don't dig myself out...I lose. And that's why I'm here. To dig myself out.
Eddie: How do you do that?
Denny: I don't know. I never had to do it before. I guess I start with me, I mean...And that's why I'm here. To dig myself out of me.

But worse of all is Jenny's unhappily married sister Anne, who somehow becomes obsessed with the condition of her lawn grass as a metaphor for happiness. She goes on and on - and on - about the colour of her grass, dragging the film down to the level of an amateur production written by grade schoolers.

Meanwhile the dynamics of the relationship between Jenny and Kitty are underwritten and effectively ignored, Kitty reduced to a non-entity bystander role, the radiant Alexis Bledel comprehensively wasted.

With a schmaltzy soundtrack hammering home the obvious, Jenny's Wedding is an event to miss.

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Movie Review: Snowden (2016)

A biographical thriller dramatizing recent events, Snowden recreates the story of one of America's most famous whistleblowers. The film is never less than competent, but also struggles to add much that is revelatory.

It's 2013, and former CIA employee Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is holed up in a Hong Kong hotel room with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo). Snowden is in possession of a microchip with thousands of files he stole from the National Security Agency (NSA) revealing the depth of illegal surveillance being perpetrated on the unsuspecting American public under the guise of counter terrorism. In flashback, Snowden's story is revealed. Stymied from joining the special forces due to injury, computer wizard Snowden joins the CIA where his mentor Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifans) exposes him to the world of intelligence. He also meets Hank Forrester (Nicolas Cage), a technology wizard from an earlier era now marginalized after a whistleblowing incident.

Snowden starts a relationship with photographer, dancer and model Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley), and her more liberal views gradually rub off on him. Assigned to Geneva, Snowden grows disillusioned with the intelligence world after experiencing first hand how global surveillance serves the world of dirty tricks. He continues to work in intelligence as a contractor, to the detriment of his health and relationship. Back at the hotel room, reporters from The Guardian newspaper arrive, including Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) and Ewen MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson). Snowden wants the newspaper to break the story, but the international manhunt has already started.

Directed by and co-written by Oliver Stone, Snowden is a relatively straightforward story told too soon. As of the film's 2016 release date, Edward Snowden is still a guest of convenience with the Russians and the true impact of his spectacular data theft is perhaps yet to be fully understood. The story of his remarkable hack and subsequent escape played out in real time on television screens and websites across the world in 2013. The wisdom of dramatizing fresh events from three years prior while the implications are still reverberating is fundamentally questionable.

Nevertheless, the story is undeniably provocative and Stone, operating well within his passion and expertise in dramas with broad political dimensions, delivers a decent package. The relationship between Snowden and Mills is the one new area that the film explores well, and the film hits its bright spots conveying Snowden trying to hold the relationship together while wrestling with increasing paranoiac discomfort. His bottled up awareness of the government machine spying on everyone takes an increasingly worrisome toll on his health, as he observes the carefree Mills, like most millennials, sharing her life on the computer, including government-questioning liberal views and uninhibited eroticism.

Less interesting are the scenes in the Hong Kong hotel room. Stone tries to wring tension from Snowden's interaction with Poitras and The Guardian reporters, but it's choppy viewing culminating with a not exactly gripping shouting match between journalists and editors across a laptop connection. The scenes with Snowden's CIA mentors and influencers in the form of Corbin O’Brian and Hank Forrester carry more promise and deserved more screen time.

While the software capabilities at the core of Snowden's growing resentment of the NSA's surveillance programs are briefly presented, this is another film where technology is deemed too complex for anything beyond a cursory description, much like The Theory Of Everything and The Imitation Game.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt carries the film and is fine in the title role, although the personality of Snowden as a pale-faced and introverted techno-geek does not necessarily provide the opportunity for expansive acting. Shailene Woodley gets more freedom to explore the breadth of Mills' emotions, a woman genuinely in love with a man transforming before her eyes into a tortured enigma.

Snowden contains enough of Stone's stylistic touches to maintain interest. But this is a biography that arrives too soon and carries too few surprises to register as a genuinely effective drama.

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Movie Review: Michael Clayton (2007)

A conspiracy drama, Michael Clayton is a cerebral thriller focusing on the underbelly of big corporate machinations in the era of globalization.

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a fixer on contract with a large New York corporate law firm run by Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack). Michael's job is to make bad news stories go away for the firm's clients. Michael is also recovering from a severe gambling problem and is trying to get away from the rat race, but his attempts to start a restaurant business backfire. Nearly bankrupt, he is under pressure to come up with a lot of money, and fast. With Bach and his team leading a settlement conference representing the interests of large agricultural firm uNorth, Michael narrowly escapes an assassination attempt while on an upstate business trip. He is forced to take stock of what exactly is going on at the law firm.

Four days earlier, Michael was called to Milwaukee to deal with a crisis precipitated by senior lawyer Arthur Edens (Tom Wilknson) suffering a mental breakdown during a deposition. Arthur was the lead lawyer on the uNorth case, defending the firm against a class-action suit involving allegations of poisoned soil on small farms. uNorth's ruthless internal general counsel Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) is not impressed with Arthur's disintegration, and even less impressed with Michael's pragmatic reaction to the crisis. Michael starts to investigate what may have pushed his friend Arthur over the edge of sanity, while Karen sets in motion an alternative plan to save her firm's reputation.

Directed and written by Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton is slick, cool and intellectual. Despite no shortage of criminal activity up to and including severe physical harm, the story is intended to stay just on the right side of grounded, with enough careful credibility to keep the narrative within plausible limits while also serving up excellent entertainment.

Michel Clayton demands concentration and rewards it handsomely. This is a film where scenes are sometimes joined mid-stream, while others appear to truncate early. Nothing is over-explained; the threads are laid out slowly, carefully, but not necessarily in an easy-to-weave pattern. All the events take place over just a few hectic days, but the subtle shift in perspective that occurs in starting near the climax and then drawing back to a few days prior achieves the desired unhinging effect.

Gilroy reveals his secrets on his own terms and according to his chosen pace, and the pay-off is immense. Once the conspiracy starts to take shape it all makes sinister sense, and the events are all driven out of a sense of knee-jerk desperation by corporate leaders wielding enormous power and pushing the envelope due to incredible strain. None of the characters have all the answers, plenty of loose ends remain beyond the reach of any tidying up, and the mess of corporate chicanery represents a familiar spiraling public relations disaster leaving many scattered victims in its wake.

The story boils down to a battle of wills between Michael and Karen, and they only meet twice, at the beginning and end of Michael's ordeal. They are two deeply flawed individuals, wracked by insecurity. In Michael's case his failures are now almost fully public, his humiliation complete once he has to grovel for a loan from Marty. Karen's anxieties are more concealed, but Gilroy bores into her fragile psyche with astonishing scenes of Karen practicing her public persona in private, the general counsel able to hide her jitters from everyone except the woman in the mirror.

George Clooney keeps his charisma wattage in check and delivers an understated performance, one of his most powerful and compelling screen achievements. Swinton gets fewer scenes but is equally magnificent, creating for Karen an icy exterior to conceal demons waiting to burst forth in all the wrong directions. Tom Wikinson and Sydney Pollack lend weighty veteran support, and Michael O'Keefe makes an appearance as another unapologetic shark in the corporate boardroom.

Michael Clayton is a rare example of a supremely smart thriller, where the battle lines are vague and the puppet masters may be hidden in business suits, but are no less lethal for it.

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Movie Review: The Debt (2010)

A decades-spanning action drama set in the world of Mossad agents, The Debt is a powerful story about spies grappling with personal agonies in a world that demands heroes and easy victories.

The film unfolds in two time periods, 1965 and 1997, with the same characters portrayed by different actors. In 1965, Mossad agents Rachel (Jessica Chastain), David (Sam Worthington) and Stefan (Marton Csokas) are sent on a dangerous mission to East Berlin. They are to abduct and bring back to Israel Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel, more famously known as the Surgeon of Birkenau for his macabre wartime experiments on concentration camp prisoners.

David is a sensitive introvert, while Stefan is the more cocky extrovert. Both men fall in love with the determined and capable Rachel. The trio do find and capture Vogel, but the mission runs into trouble before they can smuggle him out of East Berlin. In captivity at the safe house, the former Nazi turns out to be a formidable foe, but nevertheless, Rachel, David and Stefan eventually return home as heroes, their mission proclaimed a great success. A pregnant Rachel marries Stefan soon afterwards.

In Tel Aviv of 1997, Rachel (Helen Mirren) is being feted on the cocktail circuit. Her daughter Sarah (Romi Aboulafia) has just published a book chronicling the famous 1965 mission. The celebrations are marred when David (Ciarán Hinds) commits suicide by stepping in front of a large truck. Stefan (Tom Wilkinson), now a senior Mossad executive but confined to a wheelchair, reconnects with his ex-wife Rachel. David's suicide is a sure sign that all is not well in the spy world, and Rachel will reluctantly be drawn back into a world of intrigue that she thought was firmly in her past.

Visiting some of the same territory as 2005's Munich, The Debt is a film that demands concentration. Director John Madden jumps around between 1965 and 1997, and adds a brief stop in 1970 for good measure. With six actors portraying the three main characters, this is a film where it is imperative to quickly understand who-is-who, when and where. Madden pulls off the not insignificant trick of keeping the narrative cohesive while simultaneously establishing three unique characters and the psychological luggage they have accumulated over 32 years.

The pay-off for investing in the film's complex structure is immense. Madden and the team of screenwriters (Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan) reveal the secrets of the plot slowly, in tantalizing increments, first introducing a sense of lingering unease, then an unresolved dynamic between Rachel, David and Stefan, and finally, a quite stunning secret hiding at the heart of their professional lives. The film works its way towards a simmering conflict that draws in personal achievement, honour, private emotions and national pride, resulting in a delicate balance constructed in 1965 but at risk of collapsing in 1997.

The Debt also pokes away at the deep scars of the holocaust. The character of Vogel emerges as an evil Nazi catalyst for the ages, chillingly adept at matching wits with the Mossad agents despite being shackled. He finds their weaknesses, pushes their buttons, and seeks any advantage, turning what was an already dangerous mission into a journey through psychological hell for Rachel and her colleagues. This added layer of dark human sparring elevates The Debt to a level of intellectual excellence rarely encountered in a spy action drama.

The film's aesthetics are as grim and layered as the subject matter. The Ben Davis cinematography brings to life an East Berlin bathed in dank browns, yellows and greys, the iron curtain firmly closed and controlled by a police state.

Jessica Chastain delivers an amazing performance, conveying the fragility of a new field agent dropped into the real world of danger, falling in love with rugged colleagues, and having to stare down a butcher of men. Her scenes as Rachel overcomes her horror and disgust and pretends to be Vogel's patient at his gynecology practice are simply devastating in their sheer brilliance. In comparison, Helen Mirren as Rachel in 1997 and the likes of Sam Worthington (intense as the younger David) and Tom Wilkinson (a shrewd political operator as the older Stefan) are merely good.

The Debt is a thought-provoking puzzle, a journey through the moral ambiguity of a world where lust for revenge competes with historical wrongs, and the outcome is both right, wrong, and disastrous, depending on perspective.

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Movie Review: Selma (2014)

A biographical drama focusing on a specific chapter in Martin Luther King Jr.'s life, Selma looks for the man behind the image, and finds a leader struggling against self-doubt as he charts a course to change history.

It's 1964, and in the southern United States, blacks have the theoretical right to vote. Practically, they are denied that right by a maze of paperwork and ridiculous civic tests administered by bigots at small-town city halls. In the shadow of the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young girls, black civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King (David Oyelowo) raises the issue with President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), who is sympathetic but distracted by other agendas. Although King and his wife Coretta (Carmen Ejogo) are living under the constant shadow of death threats, King decides to push the issue by organizing peaceful marches deep in the south, and chooses the small town of Selma, Alabama as the rallying point.

Not all blacks are supportive of King's tactics, but he connects with members of The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and they start to organize. Alabama's Governor George Wallace (Tim Roth) does his best to inflame local opinions against King, and local sheriffs are quick to resort to brutality when the marches start. Johnson conspires with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Dylan Baker) to try and intimidate King into stopping the marches by creating a wedge in his relationship with Coretta. But King pushes ahead, the national media pick up the story, the marchers grow in strength, but the number of victims also mounts.

Selma does not spend much time on the marches themselves. Most of the 127 minutes are spent on the backroom politics that shaped public events, and on King's personal struggle to balance duties to his family, with his vision for his people and the trauma of placing individuals in harm's way. King was all of 35 years old when the events of the film took place, and director Ava DuVernay places the focus on the young man carrying an enormous burden, stripped from the legend.

For the first time the subject of a feature film, King in Selma is not just an imposing figure behind a microphone rousing a crowd (although there are several such scenes). Rather, DuVernay is more interested in how one man showed the courage to lead, move thousands, and change a country, despite opposition from the President, apprehension and dissent from on-the-ground black activists, and a marriage being rocked by threats and infidelity. The film is at its best when King is in small groups holding intense conversations, allowing waves of doubt to emerge, talking through the issues, deciding on the next action by assessing the trade offs, and then persuading others to join in.

Much like the marches, Selma moves slowly and deliberately. DuVernay contrasts dark rooms and prison cells with the harsh outside light, and unfurls the narrative at a gradual pace, allowing the enormity of the challenge to sink in. This does mean that the film drags on occasion, waiting for something to actually happen in amongst all the planning. When the climactic marches do finally start, DuVernay effectively marshals armies of extras, uncorks the tension that exists whenever history reaches a turning point, and finds impressive contrasts between those who define the future and those left behind on the sidelines, their raised middle finger a pathetic confirmation of their own extinction.

David Oyelowo steps in the shoes of King with confidence. While the speeches are delivered with the expected powerful cadence, it's in the many smaller, more intimate scenes, either with Coretta or with King's advisors, that Oyelowo shines. He creates the private King, passionate, determined, and yet often uncertain about his actions and the impact of his activism on his family. In a relatively few but pivotal scenes, Carmen Ejogo makes a strong impression, representing the home front where pride and fear reside side by side. Tom Wilkinson never quite gets the right angle on Lyndon Johnson. Martin Sheen and Cuba Gooding, Jr. have small roles in the court battle that helps determine the legality of the marches, while Gionanni Ribisi plays Johnson's main advisor.

Selma does not attempt to be the definitive statement about King, but it does provide a satisfying behind-the-scenes taste of his history-changing impact.

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Movie Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

A thoughtful comedy about new beginnings in the twilight of life, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel tackles themes of growing old, starting over, and dreaming at any age.

Seven British pensioners come to a crossroads in life. Evelyn (Judi Dench) finds herself a widow, her husband having left her nothing but a mountain of debt. Douglas and Jean Ainslie (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton) reach retirement age and find themselves poor, having invested badly. Muriel (Maggie Smith) is a retired house cleaner and a racist. She needs hip replacement surgery but can't afford to pay her way out of a six month wait. Graham (Tom Wilkinson) suddenly calls time on his career as a judge. Norman (Ronald Pickup) is a lifelong womanizer now finding it increasingly difficult to attract new lovers. Madge (Celia Imrie) has had a succession of failed marriages, and is still looking for the perfect rich man.

They all make the trek to the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a resort in Jaipur, India with marketing material much better than the dilapidated reality. The hotel is run by the young and energetic Sonny (Dev Patel), who dreams big but is unable to look after the details necessary to manage a business. Sonny is in love with Sunaina (Celia Imrie), much to the disapproval of his mother (Lillete Dubey). Evelyn finds a job at the call centre where Sunaina works, Douglas and Jean find themselves quietly drifting apart, Muriel has her surgery and encounters her own reflection in the hotel's silent cleaner. Graham looks for a long lost lover, while Norman and Madge continue their search for lust and marriage respectively. Meanwhile, Sonny struggles to keep the hotel financially viable and his mother at bay.

Directed by John Madden with a soft touch and deliberate pacing, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel combines wry humour with an exploration of options after life closes the obvious doors. Each one of the seven British characters has arrived at an unexpected fork in the road and is seeking a new window to open. But here the similarities end, and after gathering at the hotel, their journeys will take them in different and unexpected directions. There are occasional interactions and overlaps between various pairs, but this is film about personal discoveries rather than collective experiences.

There are past loves to be found, previously unknown strengths to be discovered, hard attitudes to overcome, and weaknesses to be confronted. New chapters in life are started, others are eternally closed, and some stale relationships finally dissolve. The Ol Parker screenplay (based on a Deborah Moggach book) maintains a steady state of evolution, and keeps the surprises coming to ensure an enjoyably unpredictable experience.

The screen time is almost evenly divided between the stories, but gradually Maggie Smith's layered portrayal of the overtly racist Muriel forms the central cultural bridge in the film. The wheelchair bound Muriel travels to India to take advantage of the affordable medical care provided by people that she looks down upon. Her journey encounters its twist when Muriel finds herself staring down at the servant that she used to be, and she cannot fail to empathize. It's the start of an awakening that will progress with Muriel pursuing her passion to run a big house in a culture that she will learn to embrace.

Tom Wilkinson's Graham looking for the first love of his life is prominent early on, while the story of the Ainslies finally having to confront each other with no boring careers to hide behind gains in prominence in the latter half of the film. The local adventures of Sonny dreaming big while being hopelessly incompetent at the details is probably an impersonation of his country. His love for Sunaina against his mother's wishes is cute and modernized in its sexual liberation, but finds a rather trite ending.

As can be expected from a cast of British screen veterans, the performances are uniformly excellent, and Madden controls most of his urges to meander into stereotypical scenes of India the exotic. Much like its guests, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is filled with quirky secrets to discover, and the sense of grand history is rivalled only by the unmistakable sentiment that no matter the age of the structure, the future can still overcome the disappointments of the past.

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The Movies Of Tom Wilkinson

All movies starring Tom Wilkinson and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

In The Name Of The Father (1993)

Sense And Sensibility (1995)

Shakespeare In Love (1998)

The Patriot (2000)

In The Bedroom (2001)

Girl With A Pearl Earring (2003)

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

A Good Woman (2004)

Batman Begins (2005)

The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (2005)

Michael Clayton (2007)

Recount (2008)

Valkyrie (2008)

Duplicity (2009)

The Ghost Writer (2010)

The Debt (2010)

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011, uncredited)

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

Belle (2013)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Selma (2014)

Jenny's Wedding (2015)

Snowden (2016)

Denial (2016)

The Catcher Was A Spy (2018)

Burden (2018)

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The Movie Star Index is here.