Honestly, I didn’t mean to get as involved with this year's London Film Festival as I did. I’m on a journey trying to figure out what it is I’m supposed to do as I also battle the clock before it's too late. But the chance to see a few cool films proved too enticing. I started with just two tickets. Then a third. Maybe a fourth. By the end of the two weeks, I was seeing 12 films and reserved a spot for 2 Screen Talks. Perhaps I got carried away, something to work on another day. Strangely enough, though, I was excited. Really excited. Bar an early morning screening of Spencer, this was my first full experience with a film festival after all this time. It wasn’t just a chance to see some films early and a few celebrities (especially not this year with all the strikes), but a chance to interact with a whole new community of film fans. Paired with the hassle of the trains, it was a long two weeks (if commuting to see a bunch of films can at all be considered at all ‘long’) but it also went by like a flash; it really was also an incredibly fulfilling two weeks that you’ll hopefully enjoy hearing about.
Friday 06 October 2023: 11:15 - The Bikeriders
My time at the Festival started with The Bikeriders, Jeff Nichols' adaptation of Danny Lyon’s book of the same name, charting the creation of a motorcycle club and its slow transformation into a gang. I’ve been a big fan of Nichols' work, especially Take Shelter and Midnight Special, and with his removal from the Quiet Place prequel leaving me disappointed, my hopes that he could showcase his skills as a bearish storyteller were high.
The film revels in its grotty, greasy nature and that completely works in creating a density to its atmosphere; the recreation of the world is my favourite aspect of this. The sound design is also fantastic; a scene involving 20 or so bikers intimidating a bar owner with the roaring of their engines proves to be a particular highlight. And while Butler & Hardy are wonderful in their roles, it's Comer who steals the show. Also featured are Mike Faist and Toby Wallace, who are quickly becoming two of the most exciting upcoming actors in this generation of storytelling (you should all watch Babyteeth). Yet, I have to say that I was a little disappointed with just how mainstream and consequently, safe, the film felt; from the work I’ve seen from him, I’ve always associated Nichols as a risky storyteller, yet much of this film feels conventional. Taking clear inspirations from the gangster films of Scorcese - especially Goodfellas - and targeting similar audiences as recent films like Ford v Ferrari, the film is designed to be accessible rather than challenging and rarely left me shocked. Though my audience seemed completely engrossed throughout, even verbally shocked in the latter stages. Maybe it's just me and seeing this at 11am on a Friday wasn’t the optimal time. Who knows? The Bikeriders is an undoubtedly well crafted film that satisfied my audience, but personally, I could have done with a bit more bite.
Friday 06 October 2023: 21:00 - Hit Man
With Richard Linklater present, he introduced the next film, Hit Man. Reteaming with Glenn Powell (after Everybody Wants Some!! and Apollo 10 ½) who also marks his screenwriting debut as he plays Gary Johnson, a teacher who volunteers as an undercover police officer and eventually finds himself posing as a Hit Man in a series of sting operations. However, after coming across a mysterious woman who he feels is trapped, he offers her some advice that leads them down the inevitable chain of events. One of my favourite things about this year's festival was the chance to see comedies with a packed audience, especially after being relegated to streaming releases. Now looking back at it, I’m not sure when I last saw a pure comedy in a theatre, if ever. Watching the hilarious, sexy film that was Hit Man with an audience was a real treat. Once again oozing movie star charisma after Top Gun: Maverick, Powell has the opportunity to run loose, playing a wide variety of characters and experimenting with every accent known to man. Arjona is fantastic in playing an unhinged character who becomes increasingly difficult throughout. Hit Man easily succeeds in fulfilling its comedic potential, not because of punchlines or manufactured jokes, but by relying on character and moments to leave the biggest laughs. A particular highlight comes late into the film during a recorded ‘argument’; howling with laughter throughout, the grand finale left us hollering, cheering and even applauding at the magic we had just witnessed. This makes it all the more of a shame that Netflix have spent $20m for the distribution rights, meaning the opportunity for the theatrical experience is once again bound towards rarity. Nevertheless, that doesn’t change the fact that this one was a real blast. And remember… All Pie is Good Pie…
Sunday 08 October 2023: 20:45 - Surprise Film
My first ever Surprise film… while there were a few semi-realistic predictions like Next Goal Wins and Napoleon as well as holding out a sliver of hope for Dune: Part II, I ironically don’t think there was much surprise when it turned out to be Michael Mann’s Ferrari, which in fact turned out to be my first ever film by the Mann himself. Set in 1957, charting the life of Enzo Ferrari as he navigates his life between bankruptcy, his struggling marriage and his future. Prior to the screening, Mann foretold his aim to subvert the typical biopic format, but I couldn’t help but feel that this ‘snapshot’ approach is becoming just as tyre-ing (ha ha). The film is much more of a character study for Ferrari rather than a racing film, and the film seems to be honest in its depiction of its central character, almost to a fault. Outside of the death of his son, there’s an unpleasantness and distance to this character that makes it hard to feel for him in the darkest of moments. Paired with Driver’s reliance on his House of Gucci accent which was hardly helped with all the make-up work, it honestly made it a struggle to stay invested, though it was never quite as shocking as Woodley’s, who I was convinced was playing an American for about half of the film.
Even still, the mark of a great director means there are still splashes of brilliance, namely Cruz who has the most to work with and is easily the stand out of the cast with her delicious sassiness. The prop work and production design seems to be the aspect which Mann is most proud of, a stunning set of replicas that provides an elegant sheen to the picture, and the exquisite sound design leaves you shaking from the roar of those engines. And for a film that is aiming to focus more on the characters than the racing, they’ve made it especially difficult; these may be the best racing scenes since Rush, which is still the best racing film I have ever seen.
I think one specific scene best explores my feelings for Ferrari. It’s a conversation between Enzo and his suitor’s son, where he starts to explain the in’s-and-out’s of racing, an extremely detailed explanation of the automation process of cars, his passion evident. But it’s portrayed so stoically in a simple conversation and it's just a little difficult to appreciate. For whatever reason, I kept thinking back to the scenes in Oppenheimer where Nolan takes advantage of the Macro lenses to present a dazzling endless spectacle of the smallest of moments. The film is watchable but it's no surprise that it polarised my audience, witnessing the highest number of walk-outs for the entire festival. I’m just not sure that this was the type of film people were looking for on a Sunday Night. Still, even if Ferrari may be a mixed bag for me, it is still admirable and exciting to see the likes of Mann still inspired and excited to tell these stories after all these years..
Monday 09 October 2023: 15:00 - All Of Us Strangers
For the last 10 minutes of All of Us Strangers, I think it was a requirement for at least one sniffle every 5 seconds. I don’t think I have ever seen an audience as invested or emotional as they were with this film, but the premature applause at the end showed just how successful this film had been in tugging at the heartstrings. Andrew Haigh’s newest film is a beautiful melodrama following a queer screenwriter who gets one last chance to make amends with his family and come to peace with their passing. With a cast consisting of only four key characters, all of whom shine, the film weaves between the two worlds. For a brief moment, it is able to create a delicate, fragile harmony and the cinematography and the writing are the clear stand-outs here and its final moments are absolutely devastating.
For the moment, I don’t think I have too much more to say on this one. I must admit, I did feel the outlines of the novel seeping through the structure of the story - one that very much follows the standard three act structure - and that did take me out of the film at times. I’m not sure I agree with everyone labelling it this year's Aftersun; beyond a fantastic Paul Mescal performance and the underlying sense of unease, the unpredictability of that film and the resultant visceral reaction I had wasn’t necessarily replicated here. The objectives of the story and its characters are clear and it achieves them with elegance and confidence. It is just… a beautiful film.
Monday 09 October 2023: 18:00 - Maestro
I always thought Bradley Cooper’s adaptation of A Star is Born was a well crafted romance with a killer ballad at its centre, but a film that inherited the silliness of the original tale which left me feeling sharing the same disdain as most of the other adaptations. So I was very unsure about what to expect with Maestro, especially as it was a film that ventured deep into the world of a conductor and his life of music, the area where I see my ignorance most evidently on display. Paired with the decade-long journey to put this film together and the controversy far ahead of its release with its reliance on prosthetics, it was really only the involvement of Spielberg and Scorcese that encouraged me to even attempt to watch this film. And I’m really glad I did.
Maestro was a genuine spectacle, a magnificent portrait of a life lived to its fullest. Cooper has taken the time to honestly but respectfully bring to life the story of one of America’s most prolific conductors, and even more importantly, his relationship with his wife. While my knowledge of the original man may be slight, Cooper oozes with charm and style to the point where I had completely forgotten the choice to rely on a plastic nose, even though this voice is the closest he has come to sounding like the talking racoon. However, it was a pleasantly surprising revelation that, once again, Cooper has chosen to point focus towards the leading lady. After Lady Gaga taking on that responsibility in A Star is Born, here the magnificent Carey Mulligan is tasked with that role and she is more than up to the challenge. Receiving top billing, she absolutely sells the slow realisation that she was always second in their relationship, whether it would be Bernstein’s closeted nature or his commitment to his craft, and this proves particularly poignant in their final years.
Cooper's direction wholeheartedly embraces both sides of the legendary producing duo. The first third presented in a crisp monochrome, a reveal that genuinely left me shocked and is certain to become one of my favourite film moments of the year, this portion feels the most like the whimsical nature of a Spielberg film. From the playful nature of its physical comedy to the swirling camera movements and the perfect romance blossoming, all demonstrating the endless possibilities and this sense of idealistic perfection. And as the colour begins to return, is when the cracks in their relationship begin to form as the couple seem to be heading on different paths, each of them becoming more self-absorbed and finding greater satisfaction in their work than one another. Though while I really loved the change in colour, I’m not entirely certain of the role/necessity of the shifting aspect ratio.
Maestro may not be a perfect film, even beginning to drag in the last half, but it's one that I completely admired and had me engrossed throughout. In a completely unnecessary comparison, while I’m pretty certain that Todd Field’sTár from last year is objectively the better film, I believe that I actually preferred Cooper’s efforts. Case in point, one scene near the end of the second act of Cooper’s efforts, where he depicts a notable Bernstein performance, had my jaw dropping in awe and showcased just how deeply I was under his spell.
Tuesday 10 October 2023: 14:45 - Priscilla
I had my doubts over Priscilla. It’s only been a little over a year since Baz Lurhman’s glitzy but conventional Elvis biopic and I just wasn’t sure if I needed yet another retelling quite so soon. Beyond that, the revelation that the Presley estate had limited to no involvement with the film gave me flashbacks to the dreadful Stardust (2020) which had been made without the permission of the Bowie estate and ended up being a woeful disaster which portrays the mysterious legend as a whiny child. And while Sofia Coppola has always been an exciting director to follow, I just couldn’t understand what about this story needed to be told.
And as I had hoped, my fears were completely misjudged. as I was absolutely floored. Priscilla left me absolutely floored, easily one of my favourite films of the festival and once again proving Sofia Coppola as an absolute giant of her craft. Strangely enough, the film that kept coming to mind throughout my viewing experience was Spencer (2021). Both retelling famous real world stories and retreading well worn territory, but both working with a relatively low-budget in order to create a less glossy and more rich character study focusing on a pair of women trapped in their waning relationships. From its first moments, there is an immediate sense of unease as we watch this icon desperate to find companionship with this school girl who he attempts to justify is much smarter for her age to the point where he feels comfortable drugging her, and we are witness to the slow collapse in their relationship through affairs and domestic abuse. They may not have been allowed to use any Elvis music, but the confidence in which the story is being told suggests they likely wouldn’t have rejected it even if they could.
Having only previously seen her in minor roles in the Mare of Easttown and Bad Times at the El Royale, Spaeney is a revelation in the lead role. There is an elegance and cheekiness with the fulfilment of her childish fantasies, but that is slowly shed as the years pass and her life as an abandoned housewife leaves her to feel brutally alone. Spaney has produced one of my favourite performances of the year, to the point where I feel bad for Olivia DeJonge who played the same character in Elvis but had significantly less to work with. While I still think Butler performed miracles for his portrayal, Elordi proves effective in playing a far more subdued, slinky version of this same character. Perhaps his role in Euphoria rubbed off on this film, but there were few moments where I felt anything other than fear or discomfort whenever he was on screen.
Whether this is the accurate series of events that happened all those years ago will never truly be known, but that doesn't change the ideas that are rooted in truth, something Coppola works wonders in bringing to life from the original novel, Elvis and Me. Working without the flash or wonder of Graceland, this film is a triumph and easily my preferred portrayal of the couple over last year's depiction. I really loved it.
Tuesday 10 October 2023: 18:00 - NYAD
One of the unfortunate virtues/inevitabilities of getting involved with these festivals is recognising those which proved least effective; this year, I would unfortunately reserve that role for NYAD. Recounting the events of marathon swimmer Diane Nyad, her trainer Bonnie Stoll and their team as they attempt to complete a lifelong dream of swimming from Cuba to Florida in the 110-mile open ocean.
Undoubtedly, the two lead performances are my absolute favourite parts of this role with Benning and Foster remarkably capturing the two lead characters' determination and courage. It’s becoming increasingly rare to find stories where the protagonists are females over the age of 50, let alone a duo of female leads, and neither let this opportunity go to waste. Also a stand out is Rhys Ifans who acts a gentle hostility amongst the team, hungry for success but not blind to reality
The story is an inspiring one, one that champions the human spirit and is absolutely worth preserving; I just wish it was told in a more daring and less conventional manner. Directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, who had previously presented their confidence with documentary filmmaking through the fantastic The Rescue and the Oscar-winning Free Solo, have made the switch to a more narrative approach for this film, citing the work of screenwriter Julia Cox as the key reason for this. However, I was a little taken aback at how reliant the film was on the formulae established by plenty of films in this genre. The film feels as if it has been designed and manufactured into a safe team-building adventure rather than ever feeling like an accurate depiction of the journey that took place, outside of a few details including the number of failed attempts. Even though it would lose the brilliant performances, I can’t help but feel that the documentary approach would have proven far more effective in keeping me engaged. It’s also not helped by how generic the film feels; considering how daring I found so many of the projects I witnessed over those two weeks, a straight-to-Netflix film with fairly static shots and CGI sharks kept me at a distance. Personally, I felt the film just made too many choices that didn’t sit well right with me and left it difficult to feel much as it came to its inevitable finale.
It seemed like I was alone with my feelings, and I was actually thankful that I was alone in my thoughts. The film lived up to its crowd-pleasing nature and was thoroughly embraced by the audience, mostly comprised of seniors who were laughing, cheering and even crying, giving an enthusiastic round of applause in its final moments. It was a real showcase of why film is such a special, community driven medium of film. The filmmakers clearly put a lot of work and passion into this project, and while the film wasn’t what I was looking for, witnessing the spell it had so many others under was genuinely delightful.
Tuesday 10 October 2023: 21:00 - Foe
While NYAD ultimately ended up as my personal least favourite of the festival, there was one other film that proved to be a strong competitor. I recently rewatched Garth Davis Lion, the story of an adopted Indian boy on his desperate crusade to find his birth parents, and while registering some of the flaws that the film had been levied against over the years, I still found it to be a beautifully told story that still leaves me emotionally shattered in its final moments. It’s been five years since his last film, his ambitious Mary Magdalene, so I was very excited to see what he had planned next. The answer was Foe, a low-budget sci-fi story starring two of my favourite actors working today, Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal, and an adaptation of Iain Reid’s follow up novel to I’m Thinking of Ending Things. A number of perfect pieces that left me asking what could go wrong?
Unfortunately, Foe is far less than the sum of its parts… at least for most of the runtime. Its greatest struggles surprisingly enough come from the story being told, and by extension, the screenplay. This film seems to fall into the same trap so many other book-to-film adaptations struggle from; reusing specific iconic lines from the novel that simply do not work when presented on film. While Ronan continues to showcase her remarkable talent and is able to deliver the most odd lines with conviction, I was surprised with just how regularly I found myself perplexed with Mescals performance. An actor who I have associated with playing a range of quietly hurting characters with beauty - from Normal People to Aftersun to All of Us Strangers (which I had just seen the day before) - this is the first performance of his where I have witnessed his ‘big acting’ with several scenes of shouting about his pain and confusion, and while I applaud the ambition, I was rarely convinced with him in this role. I seem to be in the minority in thinking the first two thirds left much to be desired for me; it’s so evidently clear that a grand twist is around the corner that it becomes difficult to embrace the individual moments without thinking how this needs to relate to the story further on. At around the halfway point, I had all but lost hope that this grand revelation would provide a sense of satisfaction and was essentially waiting out the credits.
Yet, I must admit that when that twist did come, I’m not sure if it was the slight differences in my own predictions or if it was a genuinely clever revelation, but I found myself finally understanding what the story was trying to achieve. Having not seen any Black Mirror, I am not in the place to compare it to that show, but the revelation genuinely provided an interesting angle of a fracturing relationship over time. It’s definitely not the cleanest of reveals, but it did enough to win me over.
This is the dictionary definition of a ‘frustrating film’. The story and the screenplay aside, there is so much of this that works beautifully. From the gorgeous cinematography, the seamless incorporation of the sci-fi world into the Australian background and the charisma of Pierre, so much of this film works on paper, to the point where I would recommend it. But as a film I had hoped would replicate the success of his previous works or provide a new kind of experience, this one proved disappointing.
Thursday 12 October 2023: 11:00 - The Holdovers
I had originally started this by foretelling The Holdovers as a future Christmas Classic, calling it a pure delight with an incredible trifecta of performances at its centre and one that entertained me so much that any trace of fatigue caused by the 11am start time was gone by the halfway point. I was even ready to draw connections between Giammati’s character, a curmudgeonous teacher, to other iconic Christmas characters like Scrooge with a reputation for being stubborn and arrogant and being unable or unwilling to change that. That’s how I was going to start this, and there is no doubt in my mind that there are moments within this film which celebrates the most joyful moments of community and unity during hardships, achieving this primarily due to the strength in its character. Yet, over the last few days, there is an article that has started to reshape my opinion of the film.
Speaking to IndieWire, director Alexander Payne admitted to being ‘nauseated’ by that response, calling the film melancholy as it charts the story of ‘these boys who have nowhere to go at a time where you’re supposed to be with your family’. And that is absolutely the case too. The central conceit oozes in tragedy, whether it's the most reviled teacher amongst staff and students pleased to be shafted with this holiday job as it gives him some company, or the students having nowhere to go during the holiday season. Da’Vine Joy Randolph brilliantly plays a caretaker who has just lost her son and stays over the holidays because she has nowhere to go. And between Mr Hunham and Angus, the latter being played by Dominic Sessa who is incredible in his debut performance, comes attached to the battle between hidden traumas and missed potentials. The final moments aren’t necessarily joyful or celebratory, but an opportunity for another chance. The outcome… inconclusive.
The Holdovers works because it is first and foremost a human story, driven by the characters and the strength of their writing. From their struggles and flaws, to their sporadic attempts to change and improve. It is this spirit of growth that I believe makes the film ‘cozy’, and not necessarily playing out neatly with a bow wrapped on top, which is what I think Payne refers to. No matter how you see it, there is no doubt that The Holdovers is a wholeheartedly success. Amidst it’s beautiful camera work and terrific production design, I found myself thoroughly delighted throughout, no matter if that was the intention. I simply cannot wait to rewatch this one as soon as the Winter comes around.
Friday 13 October 2023: 14:45 - The Zone of Interest
A massive thank you to the underground teams who shut down the entire Metropolitan line and left me 20 minutes late for The Zone of Interest. Really appreciate it.
I don’t think it’s particularly fair to share my thoughts on this one just yet because of what I missed, but if that first 20 minutes is just as haunting as the rest of the film, this is bound to be one of my favourite films of the year. A fairly standard family drama following the day to day lives of a German household, oblivious to the atrocities of the Holocaust taking place in the background.
A powerful dissection of the fine line between good and evil, asking its audience to not only walk in the shoes of some of the most vile people who ever stepped foot on the face of the earth, but actually relate to them and even empathise with them. It relishes in its eerie atmosphere and actively sets out to leave its viewers as uncomfortable as possible. Paired with the desaturated colour work and the brilliance of each performance works to create one of the most chilling, unpleasant viewing experiences I have ever witnessed… in the best of ways.
Also, there is no way to talk about this film without mentioning the foreboding, phemonel sound and music, which in a Q&A following the screenings, Glazer mentioned that the screenplay for the sound team was just as long as the regular script. Working in tandem with the images presented on screen, there were at least three moments where I had my hands on my ears as I waited in dread for what was coming next.
I am reserving my full analysis until the rewatch, which I am equally as excited and anxious to get through. But I am pretty confident in saying that this is something truly special.
Also, I met Jonathan Glazer after the screening and he seemed really nice so that was a plus. Christian Friedel was standing next to him, but I didn’t recognise him without his haircut and I immediately started kicking myself when I realised.
Friday 13 October 2023: 18:00 - The End We Start From
A confident directorial debut from director Mahalia Belo, The End We Start From is a decent ‘apocalyptic’ drama that takes clear influence from Children of Men. Having not read the book which this film is based around, I found myself engrossed with this story of motherhood; the connection drawn between the struggles of birth and raising a child against the backdrop of the flooding of London provides for a clever analogy. Unsurprisingly, Jodie Comer is reliably brilliant in this daring role, breathing life into the story's pivotal moments of liberation. I was also impressed with the creative use of its locations, shooting many of its scenes in the rural countryside of Britain that match the tone and atmosphere which the film is seeking for, and is supported by the surprisingly beautiful cinematography.
However, the numerous strange cuts, whether it be a shot of a fence or seemingly stock footage of a baby, do still highlight the amateurish nature of the director that does creep into the final film and prevents it from ever feeling as strong as other recent debuts. Additionally, much like with Foe, there are lines and moments that feel genetic to the original story, but just did not translate through the filmic medium. Nevertheless, this is still a comfortable, well-told story that leaves me excited to see what the future has in store for Belo, which I sincerely hope is something completely original.
Sunday 15 October 2023: 14:30 - The Boy and the Heron
My final day of the London Film Festival began with the much anticipated The Boy and The Heron, the newest film from Studio Ghibli and animation legend Hayao Miyazaki, adapted from the 1937 novel How do you live?. Long touted as his final film, there is a sense of finality with this one, especially through its discussion of legacy and loss, even if that no longer appears to be the case. The animation is beautiful and the world is genuinely delightful. Much of what has previously worked in Studio Ghibli films is on full show here, relying on the obscure strangeness that helped stories like Spirited Away become as iconic as they are today.
I think I need a rewatch and some distance with this one. On first viewing, I thought the film was just fine, but not the grand farewell or statement that I had hoped. Even granting that most Ghibli films aren’t exactly known for their rich narratives, I still felt like I was at an arm's-distance with what exactly was going on, only really growing some understanding in its final moments. Maybe I’m just too young and stupid to really appreciate what the film was trying to say, but in all honesty, I often found myself restless during my first viewing. I had really hoped that this would be one of my favourites of the year, but after my first viewing, not only do I think it falls short, but I also think it’s not the best animated film of the year, which is still Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and even falls behind Suzume as my favourite anime I’ve seen this year. Maybe that’s completely arbitrary and is something I’ll come to regret over time, but for a film shrouded in as much mystery as this one, I was really surprised with how cold I felt and the lukewarm reception from my audience.
But the parakeets in this film are genuinely hilarious.
Sunday 15 October 2023: 16:30 - The Taste of Things
I ran straight from my screening of The Boy and The Heron for my screening of The Pot au Feu so I was already getting hungry. By the end of this film, I was absolutely famished. The first 20 minutes alone is masterfully crafted and designed to leave its viewers salivating; it is possibly the greatest cooking scene I have ever seen, despite being a lifelong vegetarian, I was fawning over every piece of meat!
Out of every film from the festival, I knew the very least about this one, coming into this one completely blind. I had not even realised that this was the film that had caused controversy when it was selected as France’s submission for the Best International Feature Academy Award over the extremely popular Anatomy of a Fall. While I still have not seen that film, the quality of this film leaves me confident that France is likely to, at the very least, still receive a nomination for this film.
The Pot au Feu showcases a tender romance between two chefs blossoming in the background of their first love of cooking and their adopted cooking family. Charting their preparation for a greatly important cuisine, in which our protagonist Eugenie is determined to present the titular Pot au Feu, it is a simple story that is told incredibly elegantly. As great as the cooking scenes are in this film, I was equally as impressed with the strong production design and wonderful writing of these characters. The clear connection between the two of them is palpable, with their mutual understanding that they both, first and foremost, are chefs rather than lovers. Even if there is nothing greater than the glistening gold light shining off the wooden worktops or the sounds of the clattering off the pots and pans, there is still a tenderness in which this story is told that gripped me throughout, leaving me genuinely shocked in the most tragic of moments. It’s a simplistic recipe but nonetheless special, proving amongst the biggest surprises of the festival and leaving a fond taste in my mouth.
Sunday 15 October 2023: 19:30 - Poor Things
The final film I saw at the festival and perhaps the one with the most ‘buzz’. For so long, finding tickets for Poor Things was a fool’s errand, selling out mere minutes after tickets had opened. After my screening, I met two people who told me they had been waiting for two hours before the film just praying for any last minute tickets. For me, it was a random stroke of luck that a few final seats were made available while I was browsing the website a random Tuesday evening. And man, what an incredible stroke of luck!
Based on the book of the same name, Poor Things is the latest from Yorgos Lanthimos and his second collaboration with Emma Stone after 2018’s The Favourite. This is perhaps his most accessible work to date, severed from the emotionless delivery of dialogue seen in his earlier work, though calling it anything other than bizarre or crazy would be an absolute insult. This film strives on its chaotic madness, between the Lanthimos staples like the uneasy score and creative cinematography (which not only offers a return to the Fish-Eye and Extreme Wide lenses but also makes stunning use of them with its monochrome photography), but also the gorgeous production design & costume work which are bound for awards recognition, the world created here is quite unlike anything I have ever seen.
Lanthimos has repeatedly demonstrated his talent for dark comedy, revelling in the flaws and shortcomings of his characters. So I was a little taken aback that the coming-of-age story about Frankenstein’s Sex Monster turned out to be his most optimistic and even liberating work yet. And at the heart of that is Emma Stone, who next to Greta Lee in Past Lives, gives the performance of the year. Perhaps one of the most demanding roles I have ever witnessed and she seems to play it off with ease, one that not only requires excellence in comedic timing but also slapstick and physical comedy. It’s her fearless performance that helps the character of Bella Baxter to truly leap off the page, leaving any viewer
Willem DaFoe and Ramy Youssef also work wonders in their supporting roles, with DaFoe literally being referred to as God, but it is Mark Ruffallo who not only stole the show for me, but somehow may have even threatened Stone as my favourite character in the film. Playing the most pompous, pathetic man, guarded by his wealth and overconfidence which he showers to any unlucky soul who falls into his gaze… all for this persona to quickly and occasionally cruelly crumble right in front of him. I’ve been a fan of Ruffallo for a long time and always aware of his range, whether it's as the struggling music producer in Begin Again or as a struggling brother in I Know This Much Is True, but I had no idea that he was capable of this. My word, weeks on and I find myself still laughing at the smallest of his snottiest and sniffiest of moments. Any time he showed up, I found myself quietly breaking, just waiting for the next excuse to laugh, and my one minor qualm with the film is that his character doesn’t really have a concrete conclusion. Nevertheless, he is incredible here.
At the end of the showing, a gush of light flowed in as the staff opened the doors to welcome us back to reality. But none of us moved. They watched us, even began to usher some of us out, but they were forced to stand idly and awkwardly as those credits ran. We had just seen a work of wonder and we weren’t leaving until we had witnessed every last second of it. Poor Things is a phenomenon, an engrossing story told with the most courageous of performances. There was no better way to end.
Conclusion
And we aren’t even done: Killers of the Flower Moon, The Killer, Chicken Run, Perfect Days, Monster and Evil Does Not Exist are all now at the top of my watchlist. For some, this may have been a waste of two weeks. And I’ll admit, there were times where I got a little tired and I can only admire those who have the patience and determination to make it through 30 films, if not more. However, the opportunity to hear from so many new and unique voices was a treat, and hearing about their experiences and the avenues they have taken was inspiring. Maybe this is a long path that leads to nowhere, but if so, what an incredibly entertaining journey it will have been.
This is amazing! What an enjoyable read. More more more!