Olivia Colman is untouchable at this point in her career, so her star power is unlikely to be dimmed by appearing in a mediocre film. Empire of Light is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
Empire of Light is being touted as Sam Mendes’ most personal film. To be more specific, it’s Mendes’ take on the “love letter to cinema.” This particular subgenre has encompassed a vast range of styles, from Singin’ in the Rain’s loving recreation of Hollywood’s first forays into talking pictures to Wes Anderson’s meticulous fashioning of miniatures and models in The Grand Budapest Hotel. But more so than the two other competitors in this year’s Oscar race, deploying this tactic in a bid for prestige, namely Babylon and The Fabelmans, Empire of Light suggests we may have reached the point where this trope is starting to feel played out.
Set in 1981 on the Kent coast, Hilary Small (Olivia Colman) leads a solitary existence after finishing a stay in a psychiatric hospital. Sexually exploited by her vile boss (played with pathetic sleaziness by Colin Firth) and alienated from the rest of her colleagues, she trudges through life with no sense of purpose or direction. She starts an affair with Stephen (Michael Ward), the newest of the young ushers at the cinema, who shows her the tenderness that life has denied her.
What follows feels like an inelegant soldering together of two separate films. The first is a period film about an interracial relationship and attitudes towards mental illness in the vein of a Mike Leigh drama. The second is an ensemble piece about a ragtag group of cinephiles finding comfort and solidarity in their temple of the moving image. While these ideas aren’t necessarily in conflict, the two concepts never really converge. Although Hilary becomes a little less passive in expressing her opposition to the anti-black racism Michael must deal with from sour cinema patrons and violent bovver boys, there’s never a moment where the power of cinema expands her perspective.
The narrowness of his palette undermines Mendes’s attempt to pay tribute to the art form. As a stage director, he has radically reinterpreted musicals such as Cabaret and Company, influencing subsequent productions almost as much as the shows’ own creators. It’s been a disappointment to discover that he seems content to offer a thoroughly conventional view of cinematic history. We could have had Hilary and Michael discovering discarded reels of a forgotten gem of Black British filmmaking, such as Pressure or Flame in the Streets. Instead, the only nod towards cinema as a means of bridging racial divides is a screening of Stir Crazy happening in the background of another scene.
Olivia Colman is untouchable at this point in her career, so her star power is unlikely to be dimmed by appearing in a mediocre film. Commendably, she brings her full dramatic weight to this underwhelming script. Hopefully, Michael Ward will be able to use the exposure from the movie as a springboard to more substantive projects. But, far more than any of the human players, the film’s real star is Margate’s historic Dreamland cinema, which is immaculately photographed by Mendes’ frequent cinematographic collaborator, Roger Deakins.
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