Review: Begin Again (2014)

* * *
Director: John Carney
Starring: Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo

Despite the fact that I love John Carney's previous film Once, it's taken me a long time to finally get around to seeing his latest, Begin Again. This was partly due to trepidation that, like a band who follow up a breakthrough album that was low budget and rough around the edges but also ringing with authenticity, with a more put-together studio album that has all the gloss of a big production but less soul than the previous effort, it would be entertaining, but also a bit disappointing. This wasn't an entirely unfounded fear, as Begin Again covers a lot of the same thematic ground of Once, but does it with big stars, a bigger city as its setting, and higher production values, while sacrificing the scrappy charm that makes the previous film so special (this isn't to say that Begin Again is without charm, but its charms are certainly more generic). The other reason I was reluctant to see the film is because of the presence of Adam Levine, though had I known that he would be styled in such a way that he looks just a little douchier every time he appears on screen, this wouldn't have been a concern.

Review: The Imitation Game (2014)

* * *
Director: Morton Tyldum
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley

Genius. Outcast. Hero. Criminal. Morton Tyldum's The Imitation Game, adapted from Andrew Hodges' Alan Turing: The Enigma, casts its protagonist in many lights, and in turn casts society in an equal number. The story of a man who did some of his most important work in secrecy, and to the benefit of millions, only to end his life having been publicly tried and punished for his private life, The Imitation Game is a portrait of a man at once at the service of and the mercy of a society in which he never quite fit but which needed him desperately for survival. Though The Imitation Game is accurate more in the broad sense than it is in terms of the finer details, it's a solid and sometimes moving film, anchored by one of the year's best performances.

Review: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

* * 1/2
Director: Lorene Scafaria
Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley

If nothing else, watching Seeking a Friend for the End of the World gave me a renewed appreciation for Last Night, the low key "end of the world" film from 1999 which covers some of the same ground. Making an even remotely funny movie out of such relentlessly depressing subject matter isn't easy. Lorene Scarfaria's Seeking a Friend for the End of the World comes close to making it work, but ultimately just can't find the right balance of tones. Of course, it doesn't help that the relationship that acts as the story's focal point is at times sweet but mostly just weird and unbelievable.

Review: Anna Karenina (2012)

* * * 1/2
Director: Joe Wright
Starring: Keira Knightley, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jude Law

When it comes to adapting classic literature, most films err on the side of caution, delivering straight forward pieces that stick as close to the source material as possible. What makes this new version of Anna Karenina, directed by Joe Wright and adapted by Tom Stoppard, so refreshing is that it finds a way to stay relatively faithful to the source material, while breathing fresh life into it through bold stylistic choices. Whether it ends up being regarded as one of the highlights of the 2012 movie year remains to be seen (and given the mostly mixed reviews, it seems unlikely), but it is certainly one of the most interesting.

Canadian Film Review: A Dangerous Method (2012)

* * *
Director: David Cronenberg
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen

It was probably inevitable that David Cronenberg would one day make a movie about Sigmund Freud, given his career-long preoccupation with the psychosexual. What wasn't inevitable was how tame that movie would be when he finally made it - well, tame for a movie where one of the central relationships centres on sadomasochism. Elegantly mounted but somewhat lacking in spirit, A Dangerous Method is a fine film, but ultimately minor Cronenberg.

Canadian Film Review: Silk (2007)

* *
Director: Francois Girard
Starring: Michael Pitt, Keira Knightley

You win some, you lose some. Just two weeks ago I raved by Francois Girard's The Red Violin and now I'm writing, let's say, less enthusiastically about his follow-up, 2007's Silk. An airless period piece that travels from France to Japan and back again, it's a beautiful looking film that fails to live up to the potential of all the talent involved.

Set in the 19th Century, Silk follows Herve (Michael Pitt), a French military officer who longs to leave his position in order to marry Helene (Keira Knightley) and start a family. He's given such an opportunity by Baldabiou (Alfred Molina), an entrepreneur who has entered into the silk business and wants to hire Herve to go to Africa and obtain healthy silk worm eggs after European eggs become plagued by pébrine. Unfortunately the eggs from Africa are similarly affected and so Baldabiou sends Herve on a dangerous mission to Japan, where disease has never been known in silk worms, and which is entirely off-limits to foreigners. Herve is smuggled into Japan, makes the trade in a remote village, and finds himself intrigued by the concubine of the baron Jubei (Koji Yakusho). When he returns to France he marries Helene and the village enters into a period of great prosperity thanks to the eggs he's brought back.

Some time later he returns to Japan for more eggs and becomes more deeply enthralled with the concubine, who sends him home with a note she's written to him. He goes to Paris to have the note translated into English by a Japanese-born Madam, who advises him to forget its contents and live a happy life with his wife. His desire is too strong, however, and he returns to Japan despite the danger presented by the Meiji Restoration. The village where he bought the eggs has been razed, its occupants have fled. He returns to France heartbroken and his futile journey brings financial ruin to the village. Eventually he begins to recover from his experiences and even comes up with a way to keep the villagers employed, but the mysteries of his sojourns to Japan continue to haunt him.

To start with the good stuff, the cinematography by Alain Dostie is gorgeous, particularly in the scenes which takes place in Japan and during Herve's long journeys to get there. This is an exquisitely photographed film but, unfortunately, not a particularly good one. It's stiff and overly formal and, for a film about tortured love, oddly passionless. The emotions at play are so muted that they barely register, which makes it difficult to care about Herve's plight or the great revelation he comes to at the film's end.

As far as the acting goes, only Molina really emerges from this unscathed, finding a way to bring some vitality to his role. Neither Pitt nor Knightley - both of whom I generally like - are at the top of their game here. As the conflicted hero Pitt does little more than whisper and gaze longingly into the distance in order to convey Herve's profound sense of loss and Knightley (usually so good in period pieces) just seems adrift in her admittedly thankless role. It's disappointing to see so many talented people work together and come up so short, but Silk just doesn't quite measure up.

Review: Never Let Me Go (2010)

* * * 1/2
Director: Mark Romanek
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley

I love the Oscars but there are two things about Oscar season that I dislike. One is films that are so overtly and generically baity that it verges on embarrassing. The other is the way that the hype machine sometimes latches on to a movie sight unseen and builds up a mountain of expectation regarding its Oscar potential. Then, after the film finally is seen, people are disappointed because it's not in the Academy's wheelhouse and suddenly (and despite the fact that it might be a perfectly good movie) it's marked as a failure in the cultural conversation and gets left behind as the hype machine moves on to its next victim. Never Let Me Go, a gentle science fiction romance, is one of those films. It is not "Oscar-y" in any traditional sense, but it's a very good movie and a prime candidate for critical re-assessment in a few years.

The story - which takes place in an alternate reality in which clones are created in order to provide donor organs - spans decades and follows the short, doomed lives of Kathy, Ruth and Tommy (played as adults by Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield). It begins when the three are children at Hailsham, a special boarding school where, as one of their teachers states, they know their purpose but don't really understand what it means. That teacher is Miss Lucy (Sally Hawkins), who is deeply affected by her brief time at Hailsham. When she tries to give the children a greater understanding of what they are, she becomes distraught, but the children themselves accept these facts calmly. They have been raised and socialized to accept that their time on earth is limited, that they have a purpose to serve, and that this is simply the way things are. They know no other option, they have been lead to believe that there is no alternative. Because of that they do not rage against injustice but rather accept their fate as a sad fact.

Broken up into chapters, the film takes place at various points in the trio's lives, punctuated by changes in their relationships. As children Kathy and Tommy are in love but, both being shy, Ruth is able to step in, take control and have Tommy to herself. She and Tommy are still together when the three graduate from Hailsham and are sent to "the Cottages," though they break up shortly thereafter. As adults, Ruth's guilt gets the better of her and she takes steps to bring Kathy and Tommy together before there is no longer time left. Rumor has it that if two donors can prove that they are genuinely in love, it can buy them a few extra years before having to complete their donations.

This story, beautifully told by director Mark Romanek and screenwriter Alex Garland, is interesting for a number of reasons. One of the things that stood out for me is the decision to set the story in the 1970s, 80s and 90s with a quick background explanation that reveals that the scientific breakthrough that made cloning possible took place in 1952 and reached perfection in the late 60s. Since one of the story's major themes is the ethics of creating human beings simply to be harvested (ergo of intentionally and explicitly creating beings who will live a second tier existence), I find it interesting that the science of the story is concurrent with the real-life civil rights movement. The characters have no rights, no public voice, they are segregated, and they are not human beings in any legal sense of the word; they are simply medical beasts of burden. But what makes them different from "originals"? They look human, they interact as humans do, they think, they feel - what, aside from their lack of status, truly sets them apart? One of the things that the story is exploring is the way that we, as a society, talk ourselves into seeing minor distinctions as major and set about trying to define the world according to difference. On the surface Never Let Me Go might be about clones coming to terms with their destiny, but beneath that it is about the humanity which exists in "the other" and how no matter how many social rules and categories we create for each other, on a fundamental level the similarities between us will always run deeper than any of the differences.

One of the questions at the story's center is whether a clone can possess a soul. Late in the film Kathy and Tommy are informed that the artwork collected from the children at Hailsham was a means of determining whether they did, in fact, have souls, which in turn might have forced a public discussion of ethics that would save their lives. I would argue that the simple fact that they hope - not to live but simply for more time - is all the proof necessary that they have souls, that they are human beings just like any other. It would be one thing if they just wanted to escape and live - the instinct for self-preservation is present in all living creatures; but the fact that they understand time in such a way that even a little bit of it is precious to them is, I think, proof enough that the distinction between originals and duplicates is only a matter of societal attitude. The film doesn't spend a lot of time exploring the big picture in terms of how people feel about cloning or the lives of clones themselves, but whenever it touches on the subject, it makes it count.

Never Let Me Go tackles a lot of big themes but it manages to do so on a very intimate scale by creating distinct and engaging characters. It's a shame that the Best Actress field is so crowded this year and that the film itself has already been written off as an also-ran in many circles, because Mulligan's performance here is wonderful and deserving of attention. In her hands Kathy is a character of quiet endurance, a pillar of strength at the story's center that helps keep it from sinking in sentimentality. Her final moments in the film are devastatingly perfect, wrenching in fact. Never Let Me Go is a profoundly sad film, but a very good one that deserves better than the lacklustre response it has received thus far.

Review: The Duchess (2008)

* * * *
Director: Saul Dibb
Starring: Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Hayley Atwell, Charlotte Rampling, Dominic Cooper

I love a good costume drama, which is a shame for me since over the last couple of years there’s been such a dearth of really good ones, ones which seem to have a purpose beyond their costumes and art direction. The Duchess is an exquisitely realized film, beautiful in its costumes and art direction (special mention to the team behind Keira Knightley’s miraculous hair), and rich in its story and performances. It is also a film with a real and discernable purpose, one which it exploits to the fullest.

Knightley stars as Georgiana Spencer, who becomes the Duchess of Devonshire when her mother (Charlotte Rampling) comes to an arrangement with the Duke (Ralph Fiennes). Despite hardly knowing him, she’s happy with this development, having been raised to aspire to little more than a good marriage. It doesn't take long, however, for her to lose whatever illusions she once had: she and the Duke have nothing to talk about, he makes no effort to hide the fact that he has mistresses, and he brings an illegitimate daughter into the house. Georgiana takes all of this in stride; it isn’t what she expected but she can accept things for the way that they are and even comes to love the little girl as if she were her own.

It isn’t until Georgiana develops a friendship with Bess (Hayley Atwell) that the union is truly ruptured. The Duke makes Bess his mistress and insists on having her (and later her three sons) live with him and Georgiana. Georgiana’s anger is given multiple dimensions: the Duke is desperate for a son and seeing him with Bess’ three boys makes Georgiana feel like a failure, as all her surviving children have been girls; there is also the fact that it ruins her friendship with Bess, something which she describes as having been the one thing that was hers and hers alone; and of course there is sexual jealousy, though it should be noted that she seems more jealous over Bess than the Duke, the revelation of the affair coming shortly after a brief pseudo-lesbian moment between Georgiana and Bess.

Once again Georgiana tries to make the best of things, seeing in this situation an opportunity to have her own affair with Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper), whom she loves and who loves her. She attempts to make a deal with the Duke, only to have her proposition thrown back in her face. “I don’t make deals,” he tells her and then proves to her just how easy it is for him not to have to. At its core the film is a deep and thoughtful examination of the balance of power between the sexes, and of the role of women in society and in marriage. A lot of parallels have been drawn between Georgiana and Princess Diana, but I think that misses the point. The value of this film lies more in what its relevance to what's going on right now than what was going on 10, 20, or 25 years ago, and I think that all you have to do is look at the current US presidential race to see that. Georgiana has ideas and an interest in politics, but all people want to talk about is how she looks and even her political allies see her most important contribution as her ability to gather a crowd. Moreover, the criteria by which a woman (particularly one in the public eye) is deemed worthy hasn't fundamentally changed: Georgina becomes worthy once she gives birth to the next Duke of Devonshire; the Republican party seems content to build their campaign around the idea of a working mother as Vice-President (though, in fairness, Sarah Palin’s politics leave little else to brag about). Motherhood was and remains a defining factor in determining a woman's place in - and value to - the world.

The double standard is something that has been explored before but what impressed me most about it here was the balance the film managed to find. The Duke, while not a nice man by any stretch of the imagination, is not a monster either. When he sees the children playing and remarks to Georgiana that it must be nice to be so free, we know that he, too, is trapped by what society expects of him, by a role that he is being forced to play. Fiennes delivers a great performance as the Duke, the cold and weary center around which chaos ensues. It is Knightley, however, who carries the film so firmly on her shoulders. It’s a great performance and The Duchess is a film fully worthy of it.

Review: Atonement

This is one of the most moving films I've seen all year. Well-crafted, well-acted, beautiful to look at, and featuring a fantastic score, this film worked for me on every level. Easily one of the most faithful adaptations I've ever seen, this is a film that I absolutely loved it from beginning to end.

The fim is faithful to the book on which it is based not just in terms of the plot, but also in the way that the story is told, going back and forth, splintering between one perspective and another.It begins with Briony Tallis (Saorise Ronan), a thirteen-year-old girl who is too smart for her age, and not mature enough for her intelligence. She tells a lie which results in the separation of her sister, Cecelia (Keira Knightley) from Robbie (James McAvoy), the son of their family's housekeeper, when Robbie is taken away to prison. There are a few reasons why she tells the lie, all of which feed into each other. First, she's seen a few things during the day that have gone on between Robbie and Cecelia (an incident at a fountain, a letter mistakenly sent, a tryst in the library) that she doesn't really understand, though she believes that she does. What Briony is lacking is the ability to really discern the context in which she is seeing these things and so rather than seeing the various shades of gray, all she sees is black and white.

Second, Briony has a crush on Robbie and is obviously jealous of what she sees transpiring between himself and Cecelia. If Robbie isn't going to be Briony's hero (and Briony's alone), then she will make him into the villain. Third, and perhaps most important, is the fact that Briony is an aspring writer and sees the situation as a story for herself to guide. The problem is, she lacks the maturity to guide it properly (i.e. honestly) and doesn't seem to understand the consequences of what she's doing, the fact that once “written,” her conclusion cannot be erased.

The early scenes establish Briony perfectly. Despite her age, she obviously considers herself very grown up, already thinking of herself as a Capital A artist as she completes the play she hopes that she and her cousins will perform that evening. Part of the reason why she begins developping her “Robbie is a sex maniac” story is to gain the upperhand on her cousin, Lola who, like herself, is young but attempts to behave and carry herself as if she's older. Being the story teller gives Briony power and allows her to play at being more grown up than she is.

Following Robbie's arrest, the story jumps ahead four years, to when he's a soldier in France, Cecelia is a nurse, and Briony (now played by Ramola Gari) is training to become a nurse and finally beginning to grasp the nature of what she's done. She wants to make amends, even though she suspects that it's too late. These scenes are also effective, conveying a different side of Briony, as she begins to see herself as we see her in the first act of the film. The end of the film, where Briony is played by Vanessa Redgrave, is heartbreaking on a number of levels, not only because we know what becomes of Robbie and Cecelia, but also because we know how deeply Briony regrets what she's done, how much she wants to take it back, how greatly she's punished herself for it, and how much it has come to define her life.

Although this is Briony's story, the central character is actually Robbie; and although Briony is the character who must atone for what she's done, the atonement of the title can also be seen as referring to Robbie, who is the Christ figure of the story and will suffer for Briony's sin. One of the more obvious visual allusions for this is when Robbie, ill from an infected wound (his wound, too, can be read as an allusion to Christ) and having walked a long distance to the beach of Dunkirk, hallucinates that his mother is washing his feet. This scene comes towards the end of the film, shortly after a tracking shot that lasts nearly five minutes and can only be described as epic. The shot follows Robbie and his two companions across the beach at Dunkirk, where thousands of other soldiers are waiting to be evacuated. In the background there's a ferris wheel turning, in the foreground we see the various ways that the other soldiers are killing time, including a group that's gathered to sing as a choir, a handful who are playing around on a carousel, and the unlucky ones who have to shoot the horses that won't be transported back. All the scenes of Robbie in France are great, but this shot is particularly beautiful, one of the most memorable ever to grace the screen. It should also be noted that it was apparently accomplished without the use of CGI.

This is an incredibly engaging film, one that brings you right in rather than holding you at arm's length. By the end, I found myself emotionally exhausted, the ending able to move me even though, having read the book, I knew what was coming. It is rare in my experience to see a film that so exactly evoke its source material right down to the minute details (the best example I can think of is the tryst in the library. See the film then read that section of the book: it is exactly the same, right down to the way Cecelia turns her head) without the source seeming almost like a crutch, like the filmmaker was so in love with the way it was originally written that he or she can't bear to make a change that would otherwise soften the transition from page to screen. Atonement the film manages to exist in its own right, becoming its own entity separate and apart from the book even while staying faithful to the book. This is an absolutely excellent film.