Hillbillydungsroman: ‘Mud’, Reviewed.

All kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out.

– Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Decades after the work of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Mark Twain, the American South remains a repository of great stories — people living off the grid, the decaying grandeur of ramshackle houses, ways of life on the verge of disappearing.  In the past five years on the screen alone, audiences have seen Debra Granik’s drama about the methamphetamine racket in the Ozarks, Winter’s Bone, starring Jennifer Lawrence; Benh Zeitlin’s watery parable, Beasts of the Southern Wild, with Quvenzhané Wallis; and now Jeff Nichol‘s fantastic Mud —all independently films made in which a powerful fable has emerged from the poetic detail of a hardscrabble daily existence.

Mud shares an intimacy of texture and mood with Mr. Nichols’ previous films, 2007’s Shotgun Stories and 2011’s ominous Take Shelter; all demonstrate a comprehensive familiarity with the the spiders, snakes, waterside houses and decaying rural terrain of the Arkansas delta. Mud, though has none of these films preoccupation with the adult world of violence and fear. Rather,  it is a sweet hearted (but never sappy) coming-of-age tale, following the fourteen year old Ellis (Tye Sheridan), who lives on a houseboat with his separating parents, and his best friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), raised in a trailer by a ne’er-do-well uncle (Michael Shannon), as they pilot their boat to an island in the Mississippi. There, they find a boat lodged in a tree by the last flood and inside  meet Mud (Matthew McConaughey), a fugitive hiding out, waiting for his white-trash goddess Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) to join him. He’s loved her since childhood in a life spent following her, parting from her, and beating up – and, in the most recent case, killing – the men that treat her badly. Now, the dead man’s family has formed a murderous posse that’s just arrived in town looking for him. The boys, stirred by an adolescent sense of idealism and romance, set out to help him; though it’s clear Mud is something of a con artist, a “born liar” in the words of his own sweetheart, he’s the centre of their secret life – a romantic outlaw who lives by portents and magic, and, especially for Ellis, something of a mentor.

Mr. McConaughey continues his mid-career transformation into a character actor of formidable skill here as Mud – lean and tattooed, with scraggly blond hair and a chipped tooth, he still retains in his rhythmic drawl an inveterate charm as king of the hill on his deserted island. Messrs. Sheridan and Lofland, though, are the stars of this film – they are brilliant as a pair, never for a moment unconvincing as lifelong friends passing into adulthood together. They communicate with few words and gestures, but intuitively understand the other’s actions, and their characters complement each other well; Ellis is perceptive and sensitive, whilst Neckbone is tough, stubborn, and powerfully loyal. The comparisons to Twain’s Huck and Tom Sawyer are obvious, but invited – Mr. Nicholls had his two young thespians study Twain’s work on set, and has here brought to life all of the great man’s deep understanding of adolescent masculinity’s best qualities – loyalty, a thirst for adventure, and a generous, involuntary chivalry. Mr. Nichols, though, is no plagiarist – Ellis’ quest, spurred by his parents impending divorce and his own clumsy first steps towards adult relationships, is to understand what kind of love will last, if there even is such a thing; this theme is incontrovertibly Mr. Nichols’ own.

There is no doubt Mr. Nichols could have told the same story in half the running time (the film clocks in at a leisurely paced 130 minutes), but specific plot is secondary here to the gradual transformation afoot. Taking Mud’s warning that “You gotta watch yourself” as mantra, the film tracks Ellis’ growing self-reliance and disillusionment with the adult world, even as he fast approaches entering it himself. The loose, organic visual style and dialogue employed by Mr. Nichols here complements this measured pacing well; open air footage shot on the river and at the island contrasts against the brief interludes into civilisation, and the novelistic script combines with David Wingo’s subtle score to skilfully ease audiences into the regional vernacular and verbal rhythms of the delta. Mud, in this sense, is a lesson to aspiring film-makers in how to build a world fully steeped in a sense of place without having to resort to picturesque cutaways.

Though the movie is beautifully filmed and formally plotted, turning on a number of symmetries and variations of repeated themes, it holds a rough, country sensibility that is well-complemented by both lead actors and supporting cast – Sam Shephard as a mysterious old man, Sarah Paulson as Ellis’ long-suffering mother, and Ray McKinnon as his hardy, insecure father are all worthy of mention.

Mr. Nichols here confidently expands his ongoing enquiry into the nature of American masculinity, and stamps himself as one of the most talented auteurs currently working in Hollywood. Mud elegantly unfolds from Ellis’ perspective, allowing adult audiences the privilege of calling on their own life experience to foresee certain developments he is too naïve to see coming. This film is a rarity; a bildungsroman that plays out with a psychological and emotional depth usually lost in the transition from page to screen, and one that will surely take its place as one of the warmest and most fundamentally enjoyable films of the year.

Liked This? Try:

        

A Fanatic Heart: ‘Shadow Dancer’, Reviewed.

Out of Ireland have we come,

Great hatred, little room,

Maimed us at the start,

I carry from my mothers’ womb,

A fanatic heart.

– W.B. Yeats, ‘Remorse for Intemperate Speech’ in Collected Poems.

Though director James Marsh chooses not to take sides in his gripping, intelligent thriller Shadow Dancer, one can’t help but feel Yeats’ measured acceptance of the necessarily violent nature of the Irish struggle for independence in this tale of a young mother’s betrayal against the backdrop of The Troubles in the early 1990s.

Shadow Dancer opens in 1970s Belfast on young Collette McVeigh (Maira Laird) making the  formative decision to send her brother Seán (Ben Smythe) in her stead to purchase cigarettes for their father. Soon after, Seán is fatally shot offscreen during an exchange between sectarian forces – the faroff shouts and pops of gunfire contrasted against the abrupt chaos of a bleeding Seán being rushed back inside the house are skilfully used to to establish a constant sense that underneath the film’s muted surface lurks a barely concealed violence waiting to erupt.

Leaping forward to 1993, Mr. Marsh capitalises on this early momentum with a gripping, wordless sequence following the fully adult and radicalised Collette (Andrea Riseborough) as she attempts to plant a bomb in a London tube station. Ultimately  arrested by the authorities and dragged to a shrouded motel room to face MI5 agent Mac (Clive Owen),  it is revealed Collette is the product of a famous Republican family, and she is warned that unless she becomes an informant she will be arrested and her young son taken into care. At first defiant, she eventually agrees to supply information on her two brothers, IRA soldiers Gerry (Aiden Gillen) and Connor (Domhnall Gleeson).

This crisp, economical opening  masterfully sets the tone of a Belfast – and United Kingdom – divided. Indeed, schism is a recurring theme of the film – from the ruthless internal security of the IRA (a terrifying David Wilmot) constantly searching for traitors in his own ranks to the British intelligence agencies working against them, each of whom appears to have their own clandestine (and contradictory) agenda. “Relax,” Mac is instructed by the icy senior officer (Gillian Anderson) when he questions what’s going on behind closed doors – “We’re all in this together”.  What exactly ‘this’ is – the pursuit of the ‘national interest’ or simply following the violence through to the bitter end – becomes less and less clear as the film spins a labyrinthine web of deception and confused allegiances.

Tom Bradby‘s script (adapted from his own 2001 novel) closely links the paramilitary operations of the IRA and the blood bonds of family, showing admirable patience as the extent of Collette’s divided loyalty is gradually revealed. With minimal dialogue, the film’s suspense is largely drawn from the powerhouse performance of Ms. Riseborough; cloaked in bright red against the muted palette of Belfast, her Collette is an enigma, revealing her innermost thoughts only at the last. Mr. Owen provides able support (and necessary star power), giving a complex (if at times overly morose) performance as Mac’s paternal feelings towards Collette compete with his duty to country. Ultimately, though, this is Ms. Riseborough’s film – save a few brief moments of action, including a brilliantly staged IRA funeral, the majority of the picture is a detailed, focused study of the competing demands of terrorism, family, country, and faith on one woman.

Mr. Marsh’s highly disciplined and effective direction is beautifully offset by an atmospheric score by Dickon Hinchchliffe, and with its fierce female performances, Shadow Dancer represents a hypnotic alternative to the bombast of the summer blockbuster season. It is rare to be reminded that not all terror comes from the Middle East or North Korea – rarer still to see such thoughtful, apolitical examination of its consequence.

Liked This? Try:

   

Humourless Comedy: ‘The Hangover III’, Reviewed.

With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you’re never off the hook.

– Steve Martin

Todd Phillips has dedicated his career to what could (uncharitably) be called ‘lowbrow comedy’, responsible for such gems as Old School, the enormously underrated Starsky and Hutch, and, of course, the Hangover trilogy. It is a surprise, then, to see Mr. Phillips’ new film, The Hangover III, emerge as a convoluted, bizarrely plotted ‘thriller’ out of the shell of what was once the most successful R-rated comedy of all time. Sadly, although Mr. Phillips and co-writer Craig Mazin should be applauded for abandoning scrambled chronology and drug-fuelled anarchy after the diminishing returns of 2010’s disappointing The Hangover II, what they have crafted here enjoys the worst of both worlds – there are neither laughs or thrills to be found, and one can’t help sympathise with star Bradley Cooper (looking supremely disinterested here after a string of recent dramatic successes) when he pointedly asks “What the fuck are we watching?”.

In the event you’ve missed the two previous instalments, the film’s main cast is comprised of the ‘Wolfpack’: man-child Alan (Zach Galifianakis), de-facto leader Phil (Cooper), and straight men Doug (Justin Bartha) and Stu (Ed Helms). Where the first two films used the bachelor parties of Doug and Stu as framework for their comedic chaos, however, III opens with Phil, Doug, and Stu being roped into helping stage an intervention for Alan, who has been displaying increasingly out of control behaviour (the trailer should tell you all you need to know about that – let’s just say there may soon be an alternative to ‘jumping the shark’) and is being committed to a treatment facility. Whilst there’s certainly an interesting film to be made detailing the real life consequences of psychotic ‘comic relief’ behaviour, this isn’t it. All Mr. Phillips is setting up here is a derivative chase narrative, leading the Wolfpack by the nose from California to Mexico to Las Vegas for reasons tied to the reappearance of Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong),who has somehow stolen the gold of Las Vegas gangster Marshall (John Goodman).

What follows is a series of prisonbreaks, heists and getaways. Unfortunately, though Mr. Phillips displays a deft hand during these action sequences – the best of which features a climb down the façade of Caeser’s Palalce – the film never comes close to convincing that there’s anything at stake. The comic dialogue and set pieces, too, fall completely flat – strange, seeing as this has previously marked Mr. Phillips’ great strength as a filmmaker.

Part of the problem rests on the film’s decision to elevate the previously bit-part roles of Chow and Alan to full blown starring parts. Though Messrs. Galifianakis and Jeong work valiantly to milk laughs from the largely unfunny script, their characters work better as chorus members than on centre stage. In The Hangover and II, Chow and Alan brought an anarchic energy to proceedings when featured- here, they start to grate soon into the second act. Although the script gives Mr. Jeong more of Chow’s character to work with, his over-the-top effeminacy soon wears thin,  and Alan’s odd, off-putting behaviour stretched over a full 90 minutes erases the relatability his neediness evokes.

With that in mind, there are some welcome callbacks to the lightning in a bottle that made the first (and, to a lesser extent, the second) Hangover such a crossover hit. These largely come from the gang’s return to Las Vegas – Melissa McCarthy has a scene stealing cameo as a lonely pawnbroker, and Heather Graham briefly reprises her role as former stripper Jade.

Overall, though, III is a huge disappointment, although not an entirely unexpected one. Third instalments rarely live up to the standard set by earlier entries (with the notable exception of The Return of the King), and III is no exception. Although fans keen to see the Wolfpack ride again may wish to try this out, and the tech credits are of the high quality to be expected of a major studio picture,  there is little of the chemistry present between the leads so visibly present in The Hangover and II. Most viewers will be better off reliving the glory days of the franchise on DVD than sullying those memories with the tired, arbitrary material on offer here.

Liked This? Try:

   

Achtung, Raimi: ‘Evil Dead’, Reviewed.

We find delight in the most loathsome things.

– Charles Baudelaire

Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez‘s bloody, gruesomely entertaining remake of  Sam Raimi‘s original (which was discussed at some length here last week) is a cinematic rarity on two counts: a horror film that does its strongest work in the third act, and a reboot  that won’t leave hardcore fans shaking their heads in anger.

No time is wasted in establishing the film’s premise – five friends travel to a secluded backwoods cabin for the weekend. The catch – it’s not a boozy trip away, but rather an intervention for Mia (Jane Levy) – a drug addict who’s trying to quit cold turkey. Inserting this subtle change from Mr. Raimi’s original is an intelligent move by Mr. Alvarez, as it immediately provides something that The Evil Dead lacked – a plausible reason for the unfortunate victims-to-be to remain at the cabin once the supernatural occurrences start getting out of hand. After all, can’t Mia’s fear of what’s in the woods be explained as a mere byproduct of her withdrawal?

That said, plausibility isn’t why anyone is purchasing a ticket to Evil Dead. A mysterious smell in the basement leads to the discovery of a book, bound in human flesh and inked in blood. Filled with horrific images and mysterious symbols, inevitably the book is opened and  read out loud by the group’s more academically inclined member, Eric (a game Lou Taylor Pucci), releasing a monstrous and foul-mouthed demon who takes possesion of Mia. Mayhem ensues as the demon takes further control, inspiring the possessed co-eds tp begin damaging themselves and each other in increasingly creative fashion.

Specific plot elements and shots instantly recognisable to fans of the franchise are repeatedly referenced, with Mr. Raimi’s groundbreaking camerawork given new life in high definition. However, the wit and self-concious parody that distinguished the original from a raft of similar 80’s horror fare is missing here, with Mr. Alvarez preferring a straight-faced approach to the violence being served up on the hapless victims. That said, there is certainly humour in the sheer scale of the  gore present here, and in the climactic third act the strict approach slackens a little to allow the appropriate respect to be paid to the franchise’s infamous chainsaw.

There are genuine scares to be found here – Mia’s attempted escape through the woods is particularly unsettling – and tension is capably ratcheted up under Mr. Alvarez’s assured direction, with the film refusing to slacken its pace until the climactic final scene (surely a candidate for the bloodiest in cinematic history).

Fans of the original will be pleased to see Mr. Raimi’s work dealt with so reverently, even if it is in a fashion more suited to the gritty realism favoured in contemporary horror than the franchise’s horror-comedy roots (those missing Bruce Campbell‘s presence are advised to stay until the end of the credits). For newcomers to the franchise, fair warning – although Evil Dead is refreshingly free of staid jump scares and the CGI, makeup and camerawork are uniformly outstanding, dismemberment and disfigurement do occur graphically and frequently. That said, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better looking – or more consistently entertaining – horror film in theatres this year.

Liked This? Try: