11月に見る映画

From November 7

Yorgos Lanthimos’s view of humanity only grows more dim as the world seems to wobble off its axis, and Bugonia might just be his sickest joke yet, a blackly comic horror of kidnap and psychosis adapted from the 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet!. It plays like an edgelord cross between Misery and Of Mice and Men, with no one to root for.

Jesse Plemons plays Teddy, a beekeeper who, believing that aliens from Andromeda are intent on destroying the Earth, enlists slow-witted brother Don (Aidan Delbis) in a plot to kidnap Michelle (Emma Stone), the smooth-talking CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Convinced she is not of this planet, Teddy locks Michelle in his basement and shaves off her hair, hoping to force her into a confession that will allow him to save the world from disaster (and maybe settle one or two other scores along the way).

Lanthimos mines a rich seam of unnerving comedy from the admittedly well-worn premise that rich people are aliens, partly because you’re never quite sure if he himself believes it. Certainly, Stone has this kind of corporate narcissist down pat by now, her character essentially being a sociopathic riff on the part she played so well in The Curse. Nothing seems to cut through Michelle’s complacency, right up until the moment she is forced to acknowledge it, and Plemons gets some great lines calling her out on her bullshit, with a critique of sundry modern ills that is equal parts stupid and inspired.

Fans of the original will know where all of this is headed, and though the ending feels a bit glib to me, it does offer him an excuse to cook up a closing montage as audacious as it is breathtakingly eerie.

From November 7

Anemone is the angst-laden debut of Ronan Day-Lewis, son of the great Daniel Day-Lewis, who comes out of retirement here to play tormented recluse Ray, an ex-soldier who abandoned his family after serving in the Troubles. At home in Sheffield, Ray’s teenage son, Brian (Samuel Bottomley), is at the end of his tether, up on charges of assault. Disturbed by his behaviour, mum Nessa (Samantha Morton) sends Ray’s estranged brother, Jem (Sean Bean), to track down her ex to his cabin in the woods and persuade him to meet with the boy. When Jem finds him, a standoff ensues between the two men in which stony silences give way to fiery monologues spilling secrets from the family’s past – for repressed Yorkshiremen, these guys sure do talk a lot.

Moody and portentous in ways it can’t quite deliver upon, the film draws power from a droning, elemental score by Bobby Krlic (Midsommar) and some surprising flights of visual fancy. But the main attraction, of course, is to see Day-Lewis Sr on screen once again, and he doesn’t disappoint with a performance of signature blazing intensity. What’s more, there are moments when you feel the young filmmaker’s reverence for – and perhaps distance from – his own dad, like the one where his camera lingers on Ray as he runs bullishly, frame slightly stooped, along the overcast shore.

From November 14

“Lynne Ramsay does not make films about people who easily triumph over their darkest, most self-destructive moments. Eight years after the premiere of her minimalist, lacerating neo-noir You Were Never Really Here, the Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar director has made another film where unmooring yourself from relationships and utterly obliterating yourself are dangerously twinned concepts … Die, My Love is practically bursting at the seams, if not with originality, then intensity. With an aflame Lawrence in its crosshairs, it casts a nauseating, hypnotic spell, plumbing the power of its domestic imprisonment story to the deepest depths.”

– Taken from Rory Doherty’s Cannes review.

From November 21

Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to the Palme d’Or-winning Titane seems to have got a bad rap from the critics, bemused by what they saw as its lack of focus and overly tricksy storytelling. It’s true there’s a ‘reveal’ at the heart of this time-hopping ghost story that’s nowhere near as satisfying as, say, All of Us Strangers, which plays similar games with viewers’ perceptions. But it’s still a bold move into dramatic territory from the French body-horror auteur, full of wonderful flashes of filmmaking and powered by a grief that feels entirely personal. 

The film tells the story of 13-year-old Alpha (Mélissa Boros), who gets a drunken tattoo at a party that strikes fear into her mum (Golshifteh Farahani), this being at some point in the 90s when a new blood-borne virus sees people turned agonisingly into marble. Alpha is ostracised at school by classmates scared they’ll get infected, and things get worse when her drug addicted uncle, Amin (Tahar Rahim), turns up one day in search of a place to crash. Flashing back to reveal episodes from the family’s past, we learn more about Amin and her mum’s relationship, and a foundational trauma that seems in danger of playing out all over again. It’s striking, beautiful, occasionally maddening stuff, confirming all of Ducournau’s visual talents, even if its elements don’t fully mesh. 

From November 28

Watch the trailer for Pillion, Harry Lighton’s new film about a leather-clad Alexander Skarsgård embarking on a sub/dom relationship with Harry Melling’s mild-mannered ingenue, and you might think you’re in for the kind of cosy Britcom ride that once primed mainstream audiences for LGBTQ+ themed stories around the turn of the millennium: a Kinky Boots, perhaps, or a Billy Elliott. While it certainly has its sweet side, Pillion quickly bares its teeth as a Tom of Finland-style fantasy told through the eyes of its gentle protagonist, Colin (Melling), who throws himself into the S&M lifestyle with wild abandon. Directing in his feature film debut, Lighton nails the tone of sweet-natured comedy with a whiff of something dirty in a very funny – and eye-popping – wrestling scene that sees the pair’s excitement writ large across their Lycra costumes. And while Skarsgård smoulders in the love-god role, it’s Harry Potter alum Melling who’s the real revelation here, touching as a timid man finally coming into his sexuality.

From November 7

Yorgos Lanthimos’s view of humanity only grows more dim as the world seems to wobble off its axis, and Bugonia might just be his sickest joke yet, a blackly comic horror of kidnap and psychosis adapted from the 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet!. It plays like an edgelord cross between Misery and Of Mice and Men, with no one to root for.

Jesse Plemons plays Teddy, a beekeeper who, believing that aliens from Andromeda are intent on destroying the Earth, enlists slow-witted brother Don (Aidan Delbis) in a plot to kidnap Michelle (Emma Stone), the smooth-talking CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Convinced she is not of this planet, Teddy locks Michelle in his basement and shaves off her hair, hoping to force her into a confession that will allow him to save the world from disaster (and maybe settle one or two other scores along the way).

Lanthimos mines a rich seam of unnerving comedy from the admittedly well-worn premise that rich people are aliens, partly because you’re never quite sure if he himself believes it. Certainly, Stone has this kind of corporate narcissist down pat by now, her character essentially being a sociopathic riff on the part she played so well in The Curse. Nothing seems to cut through Michelle’s complacency, right up until the moment she is forced to acknowledge it, and Plemons gets some great lines calling her out on her bullshit, with a critique of sundry modern ills that is equal parts stupid and inspired.

Fans of the original will know where all of this is headed, and though the ending feels a bit glib to me, it does offer him an excuse to cook up a closing montage as audacious as it is breathtakingly eerie.

From November 7

Anemone is the angst-laden debut of Ronan Day-Lewis, son of the great Daniel Day-Lewis, who comes out of retirement here to play tormented recluse Ray, an ex-soldier who abandoned his family after serving in the Troubles. At home in Sheffield, Ray’s teenage son, Brian (Samuel Bottomley), is at the end of his tether, up on charges of assault. Disturbed by his behaviour, mum Nessa (Samantha Morton) sends Ray’s estranged brother, Jem (Sean Bean), to track down her ex to his cabin in the woods and persuade him to meet with the boy. When Jem finds him, a standoff ensues between the two men in which stony silences give way to fiery monologues spilling secrets from the family’s past – for repressed Yorkshiremen, these guys sure do talk a lot.

Moody and portentous in ways it can’t quite deliver upon, the film draws power from a droning, elemental score by Bobby Krlic (Midsommar) and some surprising flights of visual fancy. But the main attraction, of course, is to see Day-Lewis Sr on screen once again, and he doesn’t disappoint with a performance of signature blazing intensity. What’s more, there are moments when you feel the young filmmaker’s reverence for – and perhaps distance from – his own dad, like the one where his camera lingers on Ray as he runs bullishly, frame slightly stooped, along the overcast shore.

From November 14

“Lynne Ramsay does not make films about people who easily triumph over their darkest, most self-destructive moments. Eight years after the premiere of her minimalist, lacerating neo-noir You Were Never Really Here, the Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar director has made another film where unmooring yourself from relationships and utterly obliterating yourself are dangerously twinned concepts … Die, My Love is practically bursting at the seams, if not with originality, then intensity. With an aflame Lawrence in its crosshairs, it casts a nauseating, hypnotic spell, plumbing the power of its domestic imprisonment story to the deepest depths.”

– Taken from Rory Doherty’s Cannes review.

From November 21

Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to the Palme d’Or-winning Titane seems to have got a bad rap from the critics, bemused by what they saw as its lack of focus and overly tricksy storytelling. It’s true there’s a ‘reveal’ at the heart of this time-hopping ghost story that’s nowhere near as satisfying as, say, All of Us Strangers, which plays similar games with viewers’ perceptions. But it’s still a bold move into dramatic territory from the French body-horror auteur, full of wonderful flashes of filmmaking and powered by a grief that feels entirely personal. 

The film tells the story of 13-year-old Alpha (Mélissa Boros), who gets a drunken tattoo at a party that strikes fear into her mum (Golshifteh Farahani), this being at some point in the 90s when a new blood-borne virus sees people turned agonisingly into marble. Alpha is ostracised at school by classmates scared they’ll get infected, and things get worse when her drug addicted uncle, Amin (Tahar Rahim), turns up one day in search of a place to crash. Flashing back to reveal episodes from the family’s past, we learn more about Amin and her mum’s relationship, and a foundational trauma that seems in danger of playing out all over again. It’s striking, beautiful, occasionally maddening stuff, confirming all of Ducournau’s visual talents, even if its elements don’t fully mesh. 

From November 28

Watch the trailer for Pillion, Harry Lighton’s new film about a leather-clad Alexander Skarsgård embarking on a sub/dom relationship with Harry Melling’s mild-mannered ingenue, and you might think you’re in for the kind of cosy Britcom ride that once primed mainstream audiences for LGBTQ+ themed stories around the turn of the millennium: a Kinky Boots, perhaps, or a Billy Elliott. While it certainly has its sweet side, Pillion quickly bares its teeth as a Tom of Finland-style fantasy told through the eyes of its gentle protagonist, Colin (Melling), who throws himself into the S&M lifestyle with wild abandon. Directing in his feature film debut, Lighton nails the tone of sweet-natured comedy with a whiff of something dirty in a very funny – and eye-popping – wrestling scene that sees the pair’s excitement writ large across their Lycra costumes. And while Skarsgård smoulders in the love-god role, it’s Harry Potter alum Melling who’s the real revelation here, touching as a timid man finally coming into his sexuality.