The Father: Not for the faint of heart

The Father (2020) • View trailer

4.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.16.21  

This one is very hard to watch.

 

Not in the negative sense; director Florian Zeller’s film adaptation of his award-winning 2012 stage play — available via video on demand — is fueled by a powerhouse performance from Anthony Hopkins, cast as a mischievous 80-year-old whose grip on reality is unraveling. Hopkins’ performance is heartbreaking; the path his character walks is absolutely shattering.

 

Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is all smiles and good manners when introduced to Laura
(Imogen Poots, left), who's being interviewed by Anne (Olivia Colman) to become his
caregiver. But the moment Anne's back is turned...

Consider this a companion piece to Julianne Moore’s Oscar-winning — and similarly distressing — performance in 2014’s Still Alice (although I wouldn’t recommend watching them back to back). The comparison isn’t entirely apt; Moore’s Alice spends the bulk of her film fully aware that she’s sliding into Alzheimer’s, whereas Hopkins’ Anthony has no knowledge of his condition.

 

Zeller’s non-linear and provocatively disorienting play was designed to give audiences a sense of what dementia looks, sounds and feels like; his film is similarly disconcerting. There’s no “beginning” to speak of; we’re simply dumped into Anthony’s world, for the most part confined to the flat that he shares with his divorced daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman).

 

She has fallen in love anew, and intends to join her new man in Paris. But she worries about her father, knowing that he shouldn’t be left alone. But Anthony is defiant, and refuses to put up with the caregivers Anne keeps bringing into the flat. His “trick” is to be charming and solicitous when meeting each new possibility — as with Laura (Imogen Poots), the one we witness — and then, later, to bully, frighten or antagonize them into quitting.

 

But I’ve already created an impression of linear progression, and that’s far from true. Zeller and cinematographer Ben Smithard favor establishing shots down the flat’s long hallway, and we never know whose voice — or presence — will manifest at the distant end. Anne’s clothing — and even age — shift. At one point, a man (Mark Gatiss) pops up in the living room, contentedly reading, looking like he belongs there.

 

Anthony misplaces things, most frequently his beloved watch. He forgets that he squirrels it away in a hidey-hole, to prevent it being stolen; Anne reminds him of this, and he erupts in a fury, incensed that she knows about that “secret” stash.

 

He frequently laments the absence of his other daughter — Lucy, his “favorite” — and wonders aloud why she never visits, oblivious to the pain such remarks cause Anne.

Victoria and Abdul: A revealing friendship

Victoria and Abdul (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for dramatic elements and mild profanity
By Derrick Bang

History is laden with fascinating incidents and anecdotes, and — here’s the amazing thing — more pop up all the time.

Having been granted the privilege of serving "the jelly" — at the request of Queen Victoria
(Judi Dency) — Abdul (Ali Fazal, center) does his best to maneuver the wobbly dessert,
while Sir Henry Ponsonby (Tim Pigott-Smith) watches nervously.

You’d think, given the tireless methodology of modern research, that we’d have uncovered pretty much everything by now. Chances are, not even close.

Case in point: The unlikely, all but unknown — and (deliberately) mostly concealed — camaraderie that bonded Britain’s Queen Victoria and a former Muslim Indian clerk named Abdul Karim. The saga came to light in 2010, with the publication of research journalist Shrabani Basu’s Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant; the details were assembled from the hitherto undiscovered journals of both Abdul and Victoria, the latter written in Hindustani Urdu (!).

The narrative immediately demanded even wider exposure, and this thoughtful big-screen translation comes courtesy of director Stephen Frears: an apt choice, given the similar sensitivity he brought to the depiction of Elizabeth II, in 2006’s The Queen. Scripter Lee Hall has adapted Basu’s book with grace and the sly wit at which the British excel, particularly when they’re poking gentle fun at themselves.

The thoroughly captivating result is anchored by the venerable Judi Dench, taking a second crack at the role she first played in 1997’s Mrs. Brown (which, rather intriguingly, details a similarly “imprudent” incident in Queen Victoria’s life). But while Dench dominates this new film — how could she not? — Ali Fazal also deserves credit for the elegance with which he has brought an equally compelling character to life.

This is late during Queen Victoria’s reign, when she has become — in her own words — fat, lame, cantankerous and impotent (along with several other marvelous pejoratives that I couldn’t jot down quickly enough). The regal routine, and life itself, have become tedious things to be endured, rarely enjoyed. She suffers fools not at all, let alone gladly; each day begins with chiding admonitions about diet and “movement” from the royal physician, Dr. Reid (Paul Higgins).

Dench always has excelled at withering glances, and they get plenty of exercise here. Victoria is well aware of the obsequious jockeying that takes place behind closed doors, as her many children — led by heir apparent Bertie (Eddie Izzard) — and court hangers-on curry favor and snipe at each other. No conversation comes close to actual candor; she can’t trust anybody to be sincere, and she’s well aware that everybody is waiting for her to die.

Sabotage: Vicious, vulgar trash

Sabotage (2014) • View trailer 
No stars (turkey). Rating: Rated R, for strong bloody violence and gore, relentless profanity, nudity, drug use and sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.28.14

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Our rough 'n' tumble "heroes" — from left, Neck (Josh Holloway), Breacher (Arnold
Schwarzenegger), Pyro (Max Martini) and Tripod (Kevin Vance) — infiltrate a drug cartel
safe house, taking down all opposition while cracking wise. Because real DEA agents
behave like this all the time, donchaknow.

Once upon a time, in the 1980s and early ’90s, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger vied for the crown of box-office action champ: the former riding the momentum of his Rocky and Rambo franchises; the latter embracing a string of solid sci-fi/fantasy entries such as Conan the Barbarian, Predator and — needless to say — The Terminator.

Now they’re in a race to the bottom.

I was astonished — and saddened — when Stallone popped up about a year ago, in the loathsome Bullet to the Head. Exiting that bit of distasteful junk, I couldn’t imagine any (former) big-name star doing worse.

Color me surprised, because along comes Schwarzenegger and this repugnant turkey.

Back in the day, you’d have had to stay up late on a Friday night — at home — to see this sort of grade-Z shoot-’em-up on Cinemax. No self-respecting actor would have signed on for such grindhouse trash, and no self-respecting studio would have dared release such a thing theatrically.

My, how times have changed.

Sabotage isn’t merely offensively, viciously, gratuitously violent; it’s also stupid beyond measure.

Director David Ayer has made a minor splash with gritty urban thrillers such as Harsh Times and Street Kings — don’t feel bad, if they escaped your notice — but his primary Hollywood rep results from his impressive one-two punch as a writer, in 2001: collaborating on The Fast and the Furious, and as sole scripter on Training Day, which brought Denzel Washington an Academy Award.

Based on his subsequent career, Ayer has been chasing the belief that amorality for its own sake is what sells in these United States. Why bother with plot or character, when one can wallow in the sleaze of ghastly depravity?

He has teamed here with co-writer Skip Woods, who also made some noise in 2001, with the stylishly nasty Swordfish, and more recently got involved with glossy action junk such as The A-Team and A Good Day to Die Hard. Nothing to brag about, to be sure, but also nothing to be ashamed of. Until now.

Anna Karenina: A tale oddly told

Anna Karenina (2012) • View trailer
Three stars. Rating: R, and rather harshly, for mild sexuality and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.30.12

Artistic vision is captivating — or clever — to the point at which it calls too much attention to itself, and interferes with the story.

Try as she might, Anna (Keira Knightley) cannot shake her growing infatuation with the
dashing Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). The resulting affair will prove scandalous in
every respect ... not that this heavily stylized film makes us care a whit.

In effect, the tail then wags the dog; we’re too frequently aware of the artifice, at the expense of plot and character development. Empathy and identification become difficult, if not impossible.

Director Joe Wright’s handling of Leo Tolstoy’s venerable Anna Karenina is radiant and ferociously inventive, thanks to Seamus McGarvey’s luminescent cinematography and, most notably, Sarah Greenwood’s brilliant production design. The film is a thing of great artistic beauty, and we cannot help being enchanted — initially — by its sheer, magnificent theatricality.

But the artifice soon becomes tiresome, which exposes the oddly flat and vexingly mannered performances. Celebrated playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard undoubtedly deserves equal credit (or blame) for this vision; I’m disappointed, however, that this abbreviated, heavily stylized handling of Tolstoy lacks the narrative snap and sparkling dialogue that brought Stoppard a well-deserved Academy Award for Shakespeare in Love. (He also was nominated, along with Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown, for writing 1985’s Brazil.)

Indeed, despite all the bosom-heaving melodrama present in Tolstoy’s novel, this newest adaptation of Anna Karenina is a curiously bloodless affair.

Wright’s approach best can be described as a stylized blend of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge (absent the music), Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and the popular stage farce Noises Off. Luhrmann’s flamboyant musical told its story as the characters improbably broke into song; Greenaway’s saga unfolded as the camera tracked horizontally, apparently seamlessly, between events taking place in various settings ... as if characters wandered into and out of fully dressed stages in half a dozen impossibly connected theaters.

Toss in Noises Off, for its behind-the-scenes antics — the stuff we’re never supposed to see — and the result is, well, fascinating. For a time.

The primary set piece, then, is a once-beautiful but now decaying theater, intended to represent the aristocratic rot of 1870s Russian high society; this building’s various sections, dressed appropriately, serve as the story’s many locales. We find Anna (Keira Knightley) and her husband, Karenin (Jude Law), at home in one corner of the massive stage; as Anna — for example — exits the room, she wanders “backstage” between curtains, scrim and backdrops, perhaps changing her wardrobe in order to be properly garbed as she enters the setting for the next scene.