Review: Locke (2014)

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Director: Steven Knight
Starring: Tom Hardy

Tom Hardy is an incredibly magnetic actor. Very few could do what he does so successfully in Locke, where he remains the only person on screen for all 84 of the film's minutes and renders a performance as subtle as it is powerful. This film about a man whose entire life slowly implodes as he drives from Birmingham to London practically demands overacting just to fill the void where other characters would usually be, but Hardy and director Steven Knight are confident enough to let a low key performance guide the ship. That said, I'm not sure whether the film ever fully transcends its premise in order to feel like a story in its own right as opposed to an exercise in strict minimalism, but it definitely can't be denied that Hardy gives an exceptionally strong performance.

21st Century Essentials: Rebelle (2012)

All eras have works of art that are fundamental to our understanding of not only the craft itself, but the culture from which it was created. The 21st century is still nascent, but it isn't too early to start creating a canon that demonstrates the heights to which film as an artform has reached since the year 2000. These are the essential films:


Director: Kim Nguyen
Starring: Rachel Mwanza, Serge Kanyinda
Country: Canada

Childhood is a precious commodity in Rebelle (also known as War Witch), lasting barely a dozen years for the film’s protagonist before it is demolished completely, thrusting her into a way of life that most adults wouldn’t have the fortitude to survive. Throughout the film she is telling her story to her child, not yet born, as a means of explaining how she has been brought to this point and why she might not be capable of loving him or her once she’s given birth. This may sound depressing but Rebelle, though a hard film in many ways, does not dwell in pathos and instead brims with life even as it surrounds its protagonist with death. This is a story about war, but it’s also a story about love, survival and, amazingly, hope.

Friday's Top 5... My Most Anticipated Movies of the Fall

#5: Dear White People
I've been looking forward to this comedy since the reviews started coming out of Sundance, so it really can't come out soon enough for me. Whether the film lives up to the promise of its trailer remains to be seen, but even if it only turns out to be half as funny and sharp as the trailer, it'll still have the edge over the vast majority of comedies that have come out so far this year.

Canadian Film Review: Archangel (1990)

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Director: Guy Maddin
Starring: Kyle McCulloch, Kathy Marykuca, Sarah Neville, Ari Cohen

Watching a Guy Maddin movie is like watching a movie from a time and a place that has never existed. Archangel was made in 1990, is set in 1919, emulates the look of films from the silent and early sound era, and seems like it comes from another planet. It is a gloriously bizarre movie in which several characters are either suffering from, or thought to be suffering from, amnesia, a war is being fought for reasons most involved don't understand, and a "cowardly" man is stabbed so that his intestines spill out and then rallies to strangle his attacker to death with them. Archangel, like pretty much all of Maddin's works, is a film that will appeal to a limited audience, but if you like weird little movies that are as creepy as they are darkly funny, then I suggest you look no further than this one.

Review: The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)

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Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Starring: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon

The Hundred-Foot Journey is pretty much exactly the movie you think it's going to be. It's a gentle, unchallenging, workmanlike film with low stakes but plenty of charm. That's not a criticism, incidentally; the world of cinema needs those types of films just as much as it needs the enormously ambitious productions that flood the marketplace towards the end of the year. In the grand scheme of things, The Hundred-Foot Journey is a very minor work, but it's also a refreshing film in that it does something that very few other movies do by giving voice and agency to characters who are usually relegated to the supporting ranks. The Hundred-Foot Journey isn't going to change the world and it isn't reinventing the wheel, but it's an often delightful trifle that delivers what it promises.