The Happy Prince (2018)

I almost didn't write this review, but as the critical consensus seems to be generally favourable to the Rupert Everett written-directed-acted film, The Happy Prince, I thought maybe I'd offer a counterpoint.

Although I knew going in to the film that this was about the end of Wilde's life, and I was therefore expecting a certain amount of bleakness, I wasn't prepared for how much of a slog the film would be.

Part of the problem was that along with all the squalid wretchedness of the piece, I couldn't find a single character to interest me. I should have been able to feel some sympathy for the state of Everett's Wilde, but the portrait of a self-indulgent man, seemingly uncaring of all the damage he was doing to the lives of those around him, made the character thoroughly unlikeable.

Not that liking a character is required for a story to be compelling - sometimes awful personalities can be fascinating to watch - but this version of Wilde wasn't even interesting to me.

The photography looked good at points. The acting was fine from a number of the players, and Everett would have been decent enough if his Wilde had been a minor cast member rather than the main character, but I was seriously tempted to walk out halfway through the film. I only kept watching out of the hope that it would get better.

It didn't.

Mary Shelley (2017)

On the strength of its trailer, I nearly didn't see Mary Shelley. I'd also noticed the film was receiving a lot of mediocre reviews, which reinforced my opinion that it would be a dull, self-important, ham-acted film.

However, there was enough craftsmanship on display that at the very least I thought it might look interesting, so the notion of making my own mind up about it nagged at me for a while.

My decision to see it over the weekend was made at the last minute - well the last half hour anyway. I had a nagging headache, was too hot and thought if the film was boring, at least I could have a nap in an air-conditioned cinema.

It took me about five minutes to realise my fears were unwarranted. Instead of being the trudge that I had expected, I found that I was enjoying the story.

The film is by no means perfect. At times the dialogue indulges in earnest feminist declarations, more concerned with forcing its point rather than letting it be made naturally.

Perhaps some of that is down to Elle Fanning's delivery. Although she handles the part and the accent well for the most of the time, I was left with the nagging feeling that she was spending too much effort sound 'proper'. At times it worked with her soft spoken delivery working as counterpoint to her physical acting, but it kept reminding me that she was acting rather than allowing me to be swept up in the story.

Aside from those moments though, I found much to enjoy about the film. Costuming, set design and the score were particular standouts, and minus the less subtle moments of storytelling, I was quite happy with the writing too.

The Mercy (2018)

To say that I found the end Title Card the most moving thing about The Mercy might be doing the film something of an injustice, but it's true.

I walked in to see the film without any knowledge of the true-life events behind the story, aside from those that I had gleaned from the trailer, which were quite a few.

The story is engagingly told for the first half. Sadly the at sea parts offered very little novelty and felt very much like movie-making-by-the-numbers to me. At this point I was more engaged with the story of what was going on back on dry land.

The acting is fine. Colin Firth gives a slightly less sympathetic performance than usual - in fact it's only his presence that elevates the part into being more than someone you would quite happily want to be lost at sea. Rachel Weisz is the real star turn - unfortunately her part doesn't give her enough to do and I spent much of my time wishing that someone would give her a role that really made use of her abilities.

It's not a bad a film. It's one that shows promise with certain scenes - and perhaps if the trailer hadn't tried to tell the entire story, it's one that might have offered a few more surprises. Ultimately, what it was lacking was the mystery. We only know glimpses of what really happened with Donald Crowhurst's voyage, and a little more mystery might have taken the film a lot further.

Stronger (2017)

If I came away with anything from Stronger, it was with a sense of how a phrase (Boston Strong in this case) can be over-used to the point of sounding like a meaningless platitude, which is the reaction from Jeff Bauman (Jake Gyllenhaal) as the phrase keeps being repeated to him.

To be fair, there's a lot more to take away from the film. For a start, losing your legs in an explosion is not a nice thing. The film gives us great detail on how much it is not a nice thing from the initial injury through to the wince-inducing removal of the dressings, to the pain of landing on one's face when trying to reach badly positioned toilet paper.

It also covers the difficulty of taking a shower, having sex, trying to get up stairs in a wheelchair, and coping with the demands of unwanted celebrity.

There are some excellent performances, particularly from Gyllenhaal, Tatiana Maslany and Miranda Richardson. The film itself is an interesting, detailed (possibly over-detailed) look at the effects of suffering a life-changing injury, a commentary on society's unrealistic expectations on victims that it elevates into heroes to try to find triumph within tragedy.

It has a lot to say and is commendable for that, but it didn't quite resonate on an emotional level for me. Amid all the detail, something of the whole seemed to be missing, which is a shame. What I would have loved to have been excellent is merely good enough.

Battle of the Sexes (2017)

Battle of the Sexes is the story of the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King v Bobby Riggs, an event that I never knew about until seeing the trailers for the film for two reasons (1) I'm not a huge fan of sport and (2) I was only two-years old at the time.

It's a timely film considering the current gender battles and something of a sad indictment of the state of gender equality when many of the issues raised over forty-years ago are still the same issues our society faces.

The film itself is well put together - the tennis sequences well handled and the performances of the actors excellent. The story itself is interesting rather than compelling. I don't think it's going to be anyone's favourite tennis film, let alone favourite sports film, but it's still an accomplished retelling of an sport-related event that people should know about.

Best Films of 2017 (So Far)

If it's good enough for Mark Kermode, it's good enough for me to offer my top ten favourite films of 2017. It isn't a halfway through the year list, as I have a couple of July releases on the list.

Starting off in January with the first film I saw in 2017 is A Monster Calls. Adapted from his own novel by Patrick Ness, it's a story about a boy coming to terms with his mother's cancer through the stories that are told to him by a giant tree monster (voiced by Liam Neeson). It's a wonderfully told story and when viewing, a large box of hankies is strongly recommended.

Hidden Figures, which was my favourite of the Oscar Best Picture nominees, is about the contribution of African-American women to the space race. As well as covering an important issue, it's also a fun, entertaining movie.

Beauty and the Beast for my money was a much better musical than La La Land. Some outstanding performances from the likes of Kevin Kline, Luke Evans and Josh Gad - and decent enough jobs done by most of the others. It's difficult to see past the animated version, but there are some nice additions song-wise, a decent expansion of the Belle-Beast love story with a subplot side trip to a Parisian windmill, and I watched it seven times at the cinema, so I must have liked it.

The Handmaiden was a Korean retelling of Sarah Waters' novel The Fingersmith. A very cleverly mounted production with a nice twisty plot and some gorgeous design. Erotic scenes mean that it's probably one that you don't want to watch in the company of elderly relatives.

Their Finest - a Second World War dramedy set around the production of propaganda films by the British Ministry of Information. Funny and moving with Bill Nighy chewing the scenery like the professional scenery-chewer he is.

Wonder Woman - aside from the climactic battle, one of the best superhero movies made. Can hold its head up with the likes of Superman the Movies (which also has a bit of a ropy ending).

A Man Called Ove - if you still have that box of tissues from watching A Monster Calls, you might need it for this. Very funny and touching film.

Spider-Man: Homecoming - the Spider-Man remake that no one thought we wanted. Only it turned out (in my book) to be one of the best of the Spider-Man films, and certainly the best Spider-Man actor we've ever had (and I'm including Nicholas Hammond).

War for the Planet of the Apes - Andy Serkis is brilliant. The film is great. That's all I think I need to say.

Dunkirk - pure cinematic joy.

Churchill (2017)

Churchill is a film about aging.

Certainly it's a character study of the man, but the particulars of the story concern themselves with the moment in Churchill's wartime leadership where he is a spent force, fixated on the mistakes in his past and unable to understand that the world is not the same place it used to be.

Brian Cox's portrayal of Churchill is impressive. There are times where he embodies the role so well that you have to squint to see the joins. Unfortunately this distracted me from fully enjoying the film I was constantly having to struggle between my image of the real Churchill and the performance I was seeing on screen, and I wasn't able to invest myself enough in the story to avoid noticing the inflections that were more Brian Cox than Winston Churchill (or perhaps that's less a problem with Cox's performance and more a problem with the film not fully demanding my attention).

However, in terms of the physicality, the way Cox inhabits Churchill's large, aging frame, there's little to fault. His portrayal carries a ring of verisimilitude - at least from my knowledge of Churchill.

The other actors generally do a decent enough job - although I wasn't quite convinced by Julian Wadham's Montgomery (was he really that effete?) and James Purefoy's George VI seemed off. Miranda Richardson and Ella Purnell were really the other standouts, supplying much of the emotional backbone of the film.

The production felt stagy - in fact, it felt as if it was originally a play that had been adapted to the cinema by throwing in a few exterior shots involving a bit of driving. Nothing suggested it needed a big screen experience. Direction was competent, with some visual flair, but overall it felt lacking in the moving picture department.

The script itself had nice touches of wit and did a decent job with the characterisation. From my basic knowledge of the period and the people, there was little that rang untrue from a historical point of view (although I'm sure somewhere there's a Churchill historian standing outside a cinema with a cardboard sign reading 'Down with this sort of thing').