The Favourite: Sex, Blood, Revenge, and Other Elegant Things

Jeremy BeckReviews
Olivia Colman and Emma Stone in "The Favourite"

Done to death, the British costume drama is given new life in The Favourite, a wickedly funny, deceptively sad movie about the ruling and the ruled. Its period trappings—the hushed candlelight, the sprawling castles, the finery and regalia—may seem unusual for a film by Yorgos Lanthimos, but then, no Yorgos Lanthimos film is usual. Having previously turned his lacerating eye on a number of twisted scenarios in the present—perversely homeschooled children, oppressively romantic dystopias, magically vengeful teenagers—the Greek director now looks backward, bringing his inimitable brand of irreverent humor and piercing technique to bear on the stuffy, pompous palaces of Stuart England. The Favourite may carry the sheen of a proper prestige production, but nobody here is behaving themselves.

Except maybe for Lanthimos. Of course, bad behavior is relative; it takes until The Favourite’s final scenes before a cuddly animal is abused, which for this occasionally sadistic filmmaker qualifies as a form of restraint. But even as he continues shoving his characters into confounding, humiliating situations—here, a genteel carriage ride through the countryside can quickly morph into the involuntary witnessing of a crude sex act—Lanthimos remains cool and crisp with the camera. Working with cinematographer Robbie Ryan (American Honey), he creates a gorgeous atmosphere that luxuriates in the period’s obscene extravagances, even as he methodically subverts them. (Ryan shoots a number of scenes with fisheye lenses, an approach that subtly warps the corners of the frame yet somehow enhances its beauty in the process.) The production design is impeccable, while the costumes and wigs—designed by the great Sandy Powell, who won Oscars dressing other English monarchs in The Young Victoria and Shakespeare in Love—are marvelously ornate. Visually, The Favourite is supple and elegant, which makes it the perfect vehicle to tell a story of backbiting and debauchery. Read More

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The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: Their Lives Are in Pieces, and So Is the Movie

Jeremy BeckReviews
Tim Blake Nelson in the Coen Brothers' "Ballad of Buster Scruggs"

In one of the six vignettes that make up The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the new Western from Joel and Ethan Coen, a solitary prospector played by Tom Waits spends a good deal of time digging a series of holes near a river. As you watch his methodical work, it doesn’t take you all that long to discern his purpose; even if you struggle to fathom the particular mechanics of his strategy, it’s plain that this silent, grizzled man is searching for gold. But because these laborious digging scenes find the film at its least busy—note that this is another way of saying “most boring”—your mind is likely to wander, and to contemplate the potential thematic connections that must surely link the film’s narratively disparate episodes.

But how? In structuring The Ballad of Buster Scruggs as an anthology, the Coens have invited their audience to engage in a robust, somewhat maddening intellectual guessing game. Maybe the movie is about the tragic inevitability of death; this seems plausible, given that four of our six main characters die, while the other two do the killing. Maybe it’s about the inherent tension between the tantalizing promise of the Old West (manifest destiny!) and the cold reality of a lawless, nascent civilization. Maybe it’s about the perpetual collision between man’s insatiable greed—most everyone we meet craves more of something, be it money, glory, or respect—and his desire for stability and peace. Or maybe, just maybe, the vignettes don’t share any deeper meaning at all. Maybe those holes are just holes. Read More

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Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald: Setting the Magical Table, One Spell at a Time

Jeremy BeckReviews
Katherine Waterson and Eddie Redmayne in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"

There is plenty of spell-casting and wand-waving in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the second in a planned five-film series from director David Yates and writer J.K. Rowling. Whether there is much genuine magic is another matter. On occasion, Yates’ visual flair and Rowling’s boundless imagination combine to show you something truly wonderful and dazzling: winged horses pulling a carriage through lashing rain; a lionlike creature with wide eyes and a whirling pink tail storming through Paris; a circle of brilliant-blue flames walling off an army of advancing soldiers. Most of the time, however, the magic on display is of a more earthbound sort, akin to a charlatan’s rudimentary illusions. The Crimes of Grindelwald is very loud and busy, but its noise and energy seem designed to distract you from what’s really happening. It’s the classic shell game writ large and in CGI; focus on the blurs of motion and the blasts of sound, and you can’t see the movie’s fundamental emptiness.

Among the many achievements of Rowling’s Harry Potter novels (and their filmed adaptations) was their deft balance between—to borrow terms from TV criticism—the episodic and the serialized; each told a compelling story with a discrete dilemma and a particular villain while also continually developing the central characters and steadily progressing toward an ultimate, good-vs.-evil showdown. The Crimes of Grindelwald, by contrast, seems entirely invested in setting the table for future installments, cautiously arranging chess pieces without moving them anywhere interesting. Following a reasonably suspenseful, somewhat indiscernible prologue in which the dastardly Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp, perfectly fine) escapes from the custody of magical law enforcement in the night sky amid a thunderstorm, the movie begins with Grindelwald poised to topple the social wizarding order. It ends in pretty much the same place. The meaty stuff, it appears, will be served later; this is just a lengthy appetizer. Read More

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Bohemian Rhapsody: Thunderbolt and Lightning, Not Very Frightening

Jeremy BeckReviews
Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Sparring with a grumpy studio executive over the direction of his ascendant band, Freddie Mercury insists that Queen’s new record will have operatic overtones, thereby defying the traditional formula of “Do it again, only bigger.” The suit balks. “I like formula,” he retorts, and well he should; formula has made him money. Bohemian Rhapsody, the new middle-of-the-road biopic about Mercury and Queen, frames this studio head as an out-of-touch buffoon, a crass businessman solely interested in profit and utterly lacking in artistic vision; the band, in contrast, is perceived as constantly knocking down barriers and fearlessly reinventing itself.

The juxtaposition is ironic, because while Bohemian Rhapsody may chronicle 15 years in the life of one of rock-and-roll’s seminal musicians, in terms of ambition and execution, it is entirely on the side of the suit. Which is to say: This movie is pure formula. Take a solitary dreamer with starry eyes and a disapproving dad; introduce him to some pleasant and unmemorable fellow aspirants looking for their own big break; show the group coming together to create some of rock’s classic tunes; follow a montage of their success with a reveal of slowly deepening fissures of dissension; mix in some substance abuse and romantic trauma; conclude with a harmonious reunion that reminds everyone of the unsullied joy of making music. Stuff everything in a blender and press “Play”, then wait for the dollars to start pouring out. Read More

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Suspiria: Witchy Women, Dying and Born Again

Jeremy BeckReviews
Dakota Johnson dances her way into Hell in "Suspiria"

Dance is death in Suspiria, Luca Guadagnino’s insane, exasperating, furiously watchable remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 cult classic. The collision of beauty and brutality on stage is hardly novel; Black Swan gave us a feral portrait of a performer who helplessly sacrificed her body and her sanity in the pursuit of artistic perfection. But Suspiria posits ballet as a more malevolent sort of blood sport, where lithe women twirl and leap and crash, all while sinister forces lurk behind the gleaming mirrors and beneath the polished floorboards, eager to feed on the talents of the young. I’m not speaking metaphorically; this really is a movie about a desiccated matriarch who craves to transplant her soul from her own befouled body into the supple flesh of an unsuspecting protégé. And you thought the battles in the Step Up franchise were intense!

Of course, Suspiria is more (or maybe less) than a gonzo supernatural thriller. “I could explain everything to you; I think that would be wrong, though,” an instructor murmurs to an unnerved pupil. I can’t explain much of anything to you, because this movie defies easy description, even as it eagerly courts post-hoc analysis. Suffice it to say that Suspiria seems to be about many things. Perhaps it’s about the intersection of political activism and grass-roots fanaticism, given that it’s set in Germany 1977 and glancingly depicts (by way of news broadcasts and radio snippets) the death knell of the Baader-Meinhof movement. Maybe it’s about femininity and solidarity, seeing as it traces the relationships—the camaraderie, the rivalries, the jealousy and admiration—of a company of female dancers at an elite academy. Maybe it’s about self-discovery; its main character, Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson), initially enters the conservatory’s halls with timidity, only to quickly reveal herself as an ambitious and capable dancer with a hunger for stardom. Maybe it’s about the persistence of fascism; how else to explain the extensive subplot about an elderly German man searching for his wife, who’s believed to have vanished decades ago at the Concentration Camps? Or maybe it’s just about a bunch of old women who want to be young again. Read More

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