So despite what I said when I started the blog, this week I’m actually going to review two films that are currently out at the cinema. My new flat is round the corner from a tiny cinema in Brighton and twice in as many weeks I have found myself drawn in from the cold when walking past. I love going to the cinema alone- but there’s generally a small window of time when you can do this without looking tragic. Friday and Saturday nights are obviously pushing the ‘independent woman’ thing, for me anyway. But this cinema is full of Brighton loners and ‘freelancers’ and more importantly, wine. So I forsee it becoming a regular haunt. Now, going to see a film on your own is one thing. But going and CRYING hysterically is another. And I managed to pick two of the saddest films going, the last couple of weeks; A Monster Calls and Manchester By the Sea. The former was a recommendation from my friend Claire McAteer who said it was good for a cathartic cry. That was pretty much my only information going in, except for the fact it was ostensibly a kids film that had parallels with Pan’s Labryinth. I’m glad I didn’t know that it was a ‘cancer film’ as I think this would have put me off. Now, I don’t know anyone(at least I hope I don’t) who finds cancer hilarious, but I’ve always found the topic either uncomfortably sentimental or relentlessly depressing when put on celluloid. And it’s not like I don’t enjoy a depressing film, it’s just a unique kind of depressing. Maybe because there’s something strangely mundane about cancer, despite its devastation. Most people will be touched by it at one point or another and perhaps it doesn’t slot well into my Hollywood universe. Anyway, I digress. 12-year-old Connor O’ Malley’s mum(Felicity Jones) is clearly fighting a losing battle with the disease when the film starts, he’s being bullied by a right nasty bastard at his (geographically non-distinct)English High School, his Grandma(eternal badass Sigourney Weaver) is uptight and cold and his biological father has a new family in the US. All in all, he’s having a shitter. To make things even worse, a giant tree monster voiced by Liam Neeson keeps coming and visiting him at night and demanding he tell him a story(hate it when that happens). Turns out the tree monster is trying to help him by telling him ancient stories about the area that he’s somehow supposed to apply to his 21st century problems, and there’s some gorgeously animated gothic fantasy sequences that deliberately jar with Connor’s physical reality, ending abruptly and plonking him back to earth. It’s based on a book by Patrick Ness, which I didn’t know upon entering but soon clocked after a few minutes, mainly due to the really poetic language used- and not just by the tree. By the climax, I was already stifling an actual sob so when his mother utters the book’s line: “I wish I had a hundred years. A hundred years I could give to you” all hell broke bloody loose, face wise. I was a snivelling, gasping, that- weird- noise you- make when –trying-not to- cry-that-actually-sounds-weirder-than- just crying MESS. But here’s the thing. It still left me feeling a bit…. flat. I can still ‘get there’ on the right day with Titanic, so me crying at something is never really a good indicator of a film’s quality. It was a good film. I’d even say a very good film. But it’s not good enough for any awards, really. Something is definitely missing. Everyone turns in good performances, Sigourney Weaver’s English accent is totally passable and Liam Neeson plays a great tree. Lewis MacDougal is the perfect Connor, and it’s always a huge gamble letting a kid that young carry a film. But it’s probably too bleak for kids Connor’s age, yet it doesn’t really offer much specifically for adults either. Consequently, it straddles a bit of a weird divide. Even though I haven’t read it, I get the impression it works better as a book. But go see it if you need to cry your eyes out- it’s definitely worth a watch. Also Liam Neeson’s ‘tree ass’ is weirdly hot. There, I said it. If cancer isn’t your bag, then there’s plenty more DEATH doing the round pre-Oscars at the moment as I found out when I followed A Monster Calls up a week later with, Manchester by the sea. I’d seen the trailer for this a couple of times and thought, in my arrogant way, that I totally had its number. I don’t know exactly when this shift in trailer style took place but it now seems that the point of the trailer is to tell you a condensed version of the film, spoilers and everything. So by the time you go to see the bloody thing, any marginally amusing scenes have been advertised to death and you end up with a longer, more boring version of the trailer. Also, what happened to gravelly voiced trailer man? (THIS SUMMER…) However, the trailer for this threw me off the scent massively. It came across as ‘Troubled loner is forced to move back to his home town to be reluctant guardian to his brother’s kid after he dies. In the process they save each other yada yada.’ But in truth, it is something far darker and grown up. The titular ‘Manchester by the sea’ is a small Massachusetts town so I was also expecting another clusterfuck of Hollywood stars hamming up the working class New England accent- trend that seems to have been steadily building to absurd parody since Good Will Hunting, 20 fucking years ago. Dialect coaches who can teach that Southie drawl must have been making a bloody killing in Hollywood, the last two decades. And as the Afflecks are two of the worst offenders in this regard, I was braced for being hit over the head with dropped rs and ‘wicked pisser’s. Luckily, Marky Mark presumably sent a Hollywood wide memo out after ‘Black Mass’ telling everyone to take it down SEVERAL notches. And everyone listens to him because he actually is a Boston thug. So you get the lilt but it’s restrained, for once. And the Massachusetts setting is basically a character within its own right. It’s absolute New England scenery porn; just gorgeous. Until this film, Casey Affleck was stuck as ‘the annoying one out of Good Will Hunting’ in my subconscious. But he deserves every accolade for this role, as he’s really come into his own- his brother must be fuming. Yes, he has to return to his home town to take care of his bereaved nephew, but the reason he has avoided his home town for so long is the real crux of the story and is not revealed until about the half way mark of the movie, in flashback form. And, bugger me, is it a sucker punch. I think I was crying at this point, but I was also doing a really exaggerated hands over your mouth ‘I’m shocked’ face, like fellas in the crowd at a football match when their team is getting slaughtered. It took my breath away. After that revelation, I was waiting for the big ‘breakdown’, Oscar-baity scene where he finally confronts his demons- a la the ‘I never learned to read!’ Wayne’s World bit. But, perhaps more satisfyingly, it never actually comes. The closest we get is a confrontation between him and his ex-wife, Michelle Williams, which is just pure, unadulterated heartbreak put to the big screen. God knows what my face looked like at that bit. It rang really true as whenever a similar situation happens in real life, you rarely get to pull a Hollywood zinger out of your arse. Instead you just say half sentences, trail off, look at them with pain and sadness and tears. So I’ve heard, anyway. I’m not naïve enough to think this wasn’t an equally cynical, Oscar-baity move on the film- makers behalf but I also don’t care because it worked and I felt like Michelle Williams was thinking about Heath Ledger and then I cried some more. It also gets bonus points for shoe-horning in some fairly big actors in very small roles which always screams to me that everyone in tinesltown read this script and was happy to take any role just to be involved. Ferris Bueller turns up as the young lad’s reformed alcoholic mum’s creepy Christian partner for approximately five seconds of screen time. And Tate Donovan milks every line as the local Ice Hockey coach. Sadly, he clearly didn’t get Marky Mark’s memo as his accent sounds like he’s seconds away from ripping his shirt off and singing ‘Good vibrations’. You can’t win em all, I guess. I can’t recommend Manchester by the Sea enough, I might even go again. You think I’d be embarrassed about constantly walking around the really small cinema with a blotchy tear stained face, but as the credits rolled for that depression-fest I noticed I certainly wasn’t the only one. We all basically stayed till the very last name just to get our shit together. I could cheer myself up this week and go and see La La land, I suppose. But I’m currently on a man ban(a self-imposed one, I’m not on a register or anything) so I don’t think I could handle Ryan Gosling right now. After all, we saw how I reacted to an animated TREE ass…
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