Explore our Cinerama Capsule 2019 film reviews, from a Kid Who Would Be King to the end of a groundbreaking comic book franchise and the final years of William Shakespeare’s life.
Vice
Powerful, challenging and utterly compelling. Vice is one of the most intelligent and accessible pieces of political filmmaking to grace our screens in many years. Deeply uncomfortable at times, yet beautifully directed and performed, Vice is a masterful exploration of power, misinformation, and manipulation in modern democracy, held aloft by the exceptional performances of Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell, and Steve Carell. This is the prequel to the world we now live in, and Adam McKay asks us to reflect on the journey that brought us here and on our ability to speak truth to power.
All is True
Kenneth Branagh and an all-star cast, including Dame Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, present a poetic, well-crafted tale of the final years of William Shakespeare’s life. All Is True shines in its use of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets to explore the final years of a man whose life has been dedicated to his craft, grounding the story in a quiet yet assured tale of mortality, family, and love. Performances are captivating, allowing an experienced cast to shine with a script that offers humour, wit and sadness in equal measure. All Is True never attempts to gloss over or romanticise the puritanical age in which Shakespeare lived, and the atmosphere of shame, control and inequality. This only further empowers the genius of his writing and its enduring appeal in our modern society.
Avengers: Endgame
Marvel took its superhero franchise to a new level with the smart, engaging, and enthralling Avengers: Infinity War, a rollercoaster ride that proved its dominance in the comic-book cinematic world. But does Endgame measure up as a conclusion?
It might play fast and loose with the laws of time, but the Russo Brothers‘ Avengers: Endgame is one of the greatest comic book movies ever made. Offering us an emotional, action-packed conclusion to Avengers: Infinity War, Endgame delivers on all levels with an entrancing, captivating finale to the Avengers’ journey that also creates a significant problem for Marvel Studios: where next?
A homage to the heroes who helped create one of the most successful comic book universes ever, Endgame picks up directly where Infinity War left off, as the first 45 minutes focus on loss, unspoken truths and revenge, allowing a talented cast to explore the hidden depths of each of their characters while pulling together each of their independent cinematic adventures as it marches toward a truly spectacular timey-wimey finale.
Central to the journey are Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Captain America (Chris Evans), as their relationship takes centre stage as their time comes to an end. Emotional and impactful, Endgame might trip over its own brilliance, at times, and its story never quite makes the most of the time travel themes present, as it opts to create parallel timelines, only expanding the already cluttered Marvel Universe, but it’s a movie of sheer power and beauty all the same.
Cinerama Capsule 2019 (reviews)
Greta
Neil Jordan (Breakfast on Pluto, The Butcher Boy and Company of Wolves) is well known for dovetailing adult fantasy/horror with contemporary social themes. However, with Greta, Jordan opts for a far more mainstream thriller/horror that delights in parts but struggles to sustain the tension of the first two acts as we approach the third.
Frances (Chloë Moretz) has recently moved to New York from Boston following her mother’s death, where she works as a waitress while enjoying the city with her flatmate Erica. However, when Frances finds a misplaced bag on the subway, her life is about to change forever when she returns it to a lonely widow named Greta (Isabelle Huppert). What begins as an act of kindness quickly spirals into a deadly dance of obsession and control.
Greta is bathed in moments of glorious tension built upon a Hitchcock-inspired story. Moretz and Huppert truly shine as their characters enter a deadly cat-and-mouse game that twists and turns against the backdrop of Manhattan.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind tells the remarkable and heartwarming true story of a teenage boy who provides electricity and water for his Village in Malawi during a devastating drought. Chiwetel Ejiofor’s multi-layered film intertwines global issues with a deeply compelling family and community-focused drama. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind offers us a window into communities where education can truly set people free, yet is often denied due to a poverty of opportunity. The exploration of the interface between technology and community tradition is beautifully constructed, as are the overlapping themes of an unequal global economy.
Ma
The latest addition to Blumhouse horror dovetails a revenge thriller with the classic teen-horror format, creating a hybrid of themes that at times echoes 1992’s The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and, at other times, 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. The result is a confused film that doesn’t really know whether it is a thriller, a horror, or a stalker movie. Ma never really manages to lift itself out of the messy, average horror territory it occupies, bypassing major story elements that could have worked in its favour in favour of cheap jumps and simplicity.
The premise is simple: in a small town, a woman who was tormented by a group of popular kids at school hatches a plan. Consumed by her hurt and anger, she stalks the adults who caused her pain as a teenager, eventually seeing an opportunity for revenge by hurting their teenage children.
Directed by Tate Taylor, who is better known for drama films such as The Help and 2016’s The Girl on the Train, Ma is a complete departure in his directorial vision and style, as he embraces B-movie horror. His vision and creativity do, at times, create interesting themes on racial prejudice in a small town of limited diversity, but these are unfortunately swept aside.
The saving grace for Ma comes from Octavia Spencer’s performance, who manages to take her character to new depths despite the script’s structural flaws. Spencer dovetails her warm, effervescent personality with sudden moments of darkness and horror, keeping the audience engaged and intrigued as to how far she will go to fulfil her ultimate revenge. But even her effortless ability to engage cannot rescue the film from its own failings.
Cinerama Capsule 2019 (reviews)
Late Night
Comedy writer and actor Mindy Kaling (The Office) and director Nisha Ganatra’s exploration of the ratings-driven world of the TV chat show is an intelligent comedic dissection of power, opportunity, ageism, and sexism in the TV industry.
Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) is a seasoned late-night chat show host who has won multiple awards throughout a 30-year career. However, her show is struggling, as is her patience with her all-male writing team. That team (most of whom she has never met) sits within an all-boys club where their writing never reflects the personality or drive of the chat show host they write for, and Katherine has had enough.
Enter Molly Patel (Kailing), who is about to enjoy a big break that others could only dream of after years spent as a quality control manager at a chemical plant. But is the studio system ready for female presenters and writers to take control?
The Kid Who Would Be King
The Kid Who Would Be King is a highly creative delight that so far hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Joe Cornish weaves together the anxieties of modern childhood, BREXIT Britain, and Arthurian legend in a truly wonderful fantasy adventure.
Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) thinks he’s just an average kid, and his life is a mundane set of trials and tribulations. However, Alex’s life is about to change when he stumbles upon the mythical sword in the stone, Excalibur, after escaping his school bullies (Tom Taylor and Rhianna Dorris).
The interface between the legend of King Arthur and contemporary Britain may seem unlikely, but it works through a delightful screenplay and a superb young cast. The Kid Who Would Be King believes in the power of young people to change the world and build something better than what we have now, and that’s a belief we can all support.
On the Basis of Sex
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a true legend of the American equal rights movement. Her resilience and fortitude led to a career that not only advanced women’s rights but also strengthened America’s standing in equal-rights legislation and practice. A career as rich as RBG’s should therefore have been nectar to a director, providing a biopic that challenged and inspired in equal measure. Unfortunately, On the Basis of Sex fails to deliver, opting instead for a melodramatic and mundane narrative.
Performances lack spark, opting for an almost melancholic tone at points where they should inspire, challenge and engage the audience. This is a disappointment, given the cast’s talent, which includes Felicity Jones and Armie Hammer.
My Dead Ones
With a captivating central performance from Nicolas Prattes as a damaged and psychologically disturbed teenager, My Dead Ones offers us a knotty exploration of fractured realities through a lens of voyeurism. Director Diego Freitas weaves his horrific tale by adopting David’s singular perspective as a vulnerable, fractured young man. David’s entire worldview is unreliable and chaotic, his whole life wrapped in a fantastical world of horror that both unnerves and exploits the viewer.
However, this very complexity also highlights My Dead Ones’ biggest flaw: its convoluted twists and turns leave those unable or unwilling to keep up far behind, long before its meditative conclusion. Here, the Hitchcock-inspired complexity of David’s character and his fluctuating sexuality are left hanging, as is the link between David’s macabre filmmaking and his view of it as experimental art.
Cinerama Capsule 2019 (reviews)
Marriage Story
Arriving 40 years after Robert Benton’s Oscar-winning Kramer vs Kramer, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story may follow in the award-winning footsteps of its predecessor in 2020. Baumbach offers us a personal and assured reflection of the complexities of marriage and divorce in the 21st Century, one that both sings and stings through the masterful performances of Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson.
Charlie (Driver) and Nicole (Johansson) live in New York with their 8-year-old son, Henry (Azhy Robertson). Charlie is a talented theatre director, while Nicole works as an actor within Charlie’s theatre company – both of their lives circling each other in a dance of individual and artistic growth, as they care for their young son. However, as Charlie and Nicole slowly grow apart, their relationship becomes a minefield of poor communication and missed opportunities. And when Nicole accepts an acting job in L.A., she takes Henry with her as their marriage falls apart.
As Nicole forges a new life, divorce ultimately beckons, with both parties maintaining a need for a positive ongoing relationship, the pain of their separation hidden from view. However, despite this pretence of normality, the reality of the divorce process is about to come into view as Nicole hires a tough LA attorney, Nora (Laura Dern).
In 2013, Noah Baumbach divorced actor Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Marriage Story may reflect the turmoil of this experience. Reflecting the complexity of human relationships and the nuanced breakdown of a marriage, Charlie and Nicole navigate change without apportioning blame, while attempting to maintain parental support. And like Kramer vs Kramer 40 years ago, their story reflects the pain of attempting this in a legal system built on a divide-and-conquer approach.
Cinerama Capsule 2018 (reviews)
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