TD 1
FILM Edd Norval Michael McDermott Jack O’Higgins
Shane O’Reilly illustration Tara O’Brien The Favourite Director: Yorgos Lanthimos Talent: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult Released: 1 January Lady Sarah: “You are enjoying all of this, aren’t you?” Queen Anne: “Well, it is fun to be queen sometimes.” – Olivia Colman thrills as Queen Anne alongside Rachel Weisz in Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite which is garnering considerable buzz. By turns tender, hilarious and deeply unsettling, The Favourite finds Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos bringing his unique flavour of misanthropy to the English period drama. The film opens with Queen Anne (Colman), a brittle monarch with little grasp on the war at hand, promising a palace to her right hand confidant, Sarah Churchill (Weisz). Though Anne is ostensibly the most powerful person in the country, she defers with almost childlike reverence to Sarah, who often berates her appearance and judgment under the guise of kindness. It seems that negging was around long before the modern pick-up artist. Things soon change with the arrival of Sarah’s cousin, Abigail. Once a Lady with a capital L before her father gambled her away as a sex slave, Abigail arrives at the palace determined to regain her status. Being played by the disarming Emma Stone (sporting an impressive English accent), it’s not long before she’s fast friends with the Queen. Soon Sarah and Abigail find themselves competing over Anne’s affections. Lanthimos has temporarily abandoned the monotone performances and pointed dialogue that populated his previous films to create something far more accessible. As a result, it naturally feels more human than the absurdist, metaphorical works he’s produced before. That doesn’t mean that his trademark cynicism isn’t on show. The Favourite is a stark depiction of women searching for power within the confines of a patriarchal society. As the film progress, it soon becomes clear that Queen Anne is nothing more than a chess board for Sarah and Abigail to play their strategies upon. The film has a bite and cruelty that make it distinct from many period dramas of the same Free Solo Directors: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi Released: 14 December It’s rare that a documentary on sport (albeit a very extreme one) examines the subject of life and death so intimately. In Free Solo, the tale of singular climber Alex Honnold, death is a support character that appears throughout, alongside his girlfriend, mother, friends and film-crew. So is El Capitan, the sheer 3000ft rock-face in the Yosemite National Park that Honnold will attempt to scale without any safety equipment. There are no nets, no harnesses, nobody there to catch him. Its stark beauty has a hypnotic effect on the protagonist in a way that no person is able to. Should he fail in his quest to conquer, Honnold seems content that this is the last face he will gaze upon. The balletic grace and atomic precision of the free-soloists well-honed limbs, alongside a small bag of chalk for grip, are the only necessities to make the ascent. They are his safety net, his buffer between experiencing life as he dreams it and the inevitability of it being all over should they fractionally fail. Human endeavour has long been a source of fascination. ‘Firsts’ of anything are bound to draw attention. This one is different though, maybe because it’s devoid of any machinery or engineering beyond the finely tuned human anatomy. Who better to capture this, and captivate us, than the pre-eminent documentarians of life on Earth – National Geographic? They seem to feel the consequences, yet understand its significance, more acutely than anyone else. Their breathtaking and intimate shots, risky in their own right, place us in the shoes and psyche of Honnold. They, alongside the climber, allow us to see and feel things we never thought possible. We, the audience, weren’t actually there, but for the duration of the film we were. Right next to Alex – freedom only a foothold away. EN ilk. That’s reflected in the camera work, which regularly employs whip pans and speedy dolly shots. Some of the camera tricks – like the wide fish-eyed lenses that distort the perspective of the rooms – seem like Lanthimos and his DP Robbie Ryan are trying a little too hard to show you that this isn’t your parents’ period drama, but it largely succeeds in creating a sharp, staccato rhythm that’s rare in the genre. Though Weisz and Stone excel in their roles, it’s Olivia Colman who steals the show as Queen Anne. If you want an example of how finely tuned her performance is, consider the scene in which she vomits from eating too much cake, only to immediately start stuffing more in her gob. It’s darkly funny for sure, but there’s a look of such resignation and pain in her eyes that it doesn’t get the belly laugh it would in a weaker film. Roger Ebert once said that movies were the most powerful aid to empathy, and there’s no finer example than Colman’s performance here, which had this Irishman’s heart aching for an unhinged English monarch. Anne is a lost child, desperately seeking validation at every turn, and despite her monstrous privilege and naiveté, the only character seeking anything beyond status. But that’s not to say that her entitlement doesn’t lead to some chilling temper tantrums. Though it begins as a dark comedy about political ambition, The Favourite ends on more sinister terms. The palace, so huge and decadent in the early stages of the film, starts to feel claustrophobic, like a prison. Ultimately, these three women are trapped, doomed to debase one another in their search for power. Or in the case of Anne, for unconditional love. JOH White Boy Rick Director: Yann Demange Talent: Richie Merritt, Matthew McConaughey Released: 7 December For every film that gets reviewed online and in print, there’s usually the casting of a unanimous sentiment over each film. Every so often however, there will be an imbalance, a polarising effect. As is the case here. But first, the story of White Boy Rick. It goes as such: it’s the 1980s, Detroit, and there’s a crack epidemic. Illegal gun salesman Richard Wershe (played by a scene stealing Matthew McConaughey) is trying to make ends meet and raise a drug addict daughter and a son, Rick Jr (impressive newcomer Richie Merritt). The father’s actions bring FBI attention and that attention gets turned on his streetwise son. Soon Rick Jr is an FBI informant by day and White Boy Rick by night, helping move guns and drugs for the local kingpin. Eventually he succumbs to the business completely and starts pushing large amounts of drugs away from the watchful eyes of his FBI cohorts. The film covers a period of four years from 1984-1987, the years White Boy Rick was aged just 14-17. Oh, and all of this is a true story. And so, that polarising effect mentioned above. The general film critic’s consensus has been that this is a fairly grim film full of fairly shitty characters. And that’s accurate. But that doesn’t warrant marking it down. There’s a lot to enjoy. Merritt does a good job looking considerably like the real deal and it’s fun watching him as his strut gets ever more confident and the number of chains around his neck multiples as his success rockets. But McConaughey is the one to watch here however, in fine form as both the emotionally overwrought father and conflicted bootlegger. It’s also an absolutely fascinating story with an equally surprising and enraging finale. It’s absorbing stuff watching such a quiet geeky looking white kid more than handle himself in a predominantly African-American environment, all the while keeping his cool with the FBI harassment, made all the more absorbing when you know it’s all true. SOR 76