Author: Daniel Simms

TV and movie reviewer.

Split – Review

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Going into a M. Night Shyamalan film nowadays comes with certain guarantees. You’ll have been wooed by the trailer, believing he’s back on The Sixth Sense sort of form. After an hour, you’ll feel the eerie creep of disappointment settling in. By the end, the “twist” will lead to abject dismay and a vow never to trust him again. But then he serves up James McAvoy playing a man with twenty-three distinct personalities.

So, we all jump aboard the Shyamalan train once again. This time we know from the adverts that McAvoy’s character kidnaps three teenage girls. They come in the guise of Skins’ Jessica Sula and her best buddy, Haley Lu Richardson’s Claire. When they’re nabbed, they are leaving Claire’s birthday party and have sympathy invite – and our lead protagonist – Anya Taylor-Joy’s Casey with them.

So far, so good. The build begins for a psychological thriller. We first meet Dennis, an OCD strict jailer. This personality is kept in check by Patricia, his female personality that helps run the gig. The plan is to feed the girls to The Beast, a yet-to-be-met personality that is above all humankind.

Do you feel that thriller swinging toward a horror?

In between captive scenes, we see Dennis parade as Barry to his therapist and seeks counsel. She totally buys the idea that within a person, multiple, completely separate identities can exist. She even gives examples how physiological changes occur depending on the personality assumed.

The host in this case is Kevin but he’s been overrun by Dennis and Patricia. The collective is known as The Horde. It’s explained they all sit around a circle waiting for their time in the light. Kevin’s nine-year-old personality, Hedwig, has the ability to control people’s slot in the light. He’s agreed to assist Dennis and Patricia because they prevent The Horde poking fun at him.

For a time, it becomes teen slasher. The girls try revolts and get put into solitary confinement. But throughout all the main actors do their roles justice. McAvoy is impressive carrying the load of diverse personas but it’s no Heath Ledger as The Joker. More, engaging performance amidst a struggling script.

When we finally get to meet The Beast, the movie becomes ludicrous. It’s okay to suspend disbelief if the requirement is made clear early on. But to start with a grounded tone, have scenes stressing the seriousness of dissociative identity disorder, to then descend into something that would look ridiculous in a modern-day comic book is almost unforgivable.

4/10 . . . if the film finished a few minutes earlier than it did.

Remember how M. Night Shyamalan likes to throw in a twist? Well, he does it again here. I’ll not ruin it for you but that “almost” before unforgivable is for occasions such as this. For the sake of a quick shock in the cinema, he would have been better just laying his cards out in advance. Doing so would have enhanced the viewing of the movie rather than numerous headshakes at the screen and the laughter it unintentionally provided in various scenes.

5/10 (Probably should be more after the final scene sinks in but M. Night Shyamalan has missed a trick.)

Apple Tree Yard – Season 1 – Episode 1

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As part of the BBC Drama drive, Apple Tree Yard comes to our screens. The Louise Doughty novel it’s adapted from is described as an erotically charged thriller, can Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin bring that spark to the screen?

Watson portrays Dr Yvonne Carmichael, a clever geneticist that starts the episode giving a speech to a bunch of politicians in the House of Commons. When it ends, she gets chatting to Chaplin’s Mark Costley (Dickens-esq naming of characters?), rather than exit, he shows her to a secret area used for functions (even weddings).

In a broom cupboard, they have a good old fashioned quickie. To add a sense of spontaneity, Mark gets the job done with his foot in a mop bucket.

To be fair, at this point it feels charged enough. Had it lived up to the adverts, it would have been a good platform. But then the thriller of the novel becomes a soap opera. We see Yvonne unhappy at home, her husband is probably having an affair, so naturally she goes hunting Costley.

He likes danger sex in public, she just likes him. That’s what turns her on – him. She actually explains this to Mark. By the time he’s throwing another one up in Apple Tree Yard, you really don’t care if her marriage fails, who Mark Costley really is (she thinks he’s a “Spook” for MI6).

We know the story is told retrospectively as we saw the present-day Yvonne handcuffed at the start, so there had to be more to the story than an average looking middle aged woman having indecent sex in public.

Then comes a work’s party, her husband away, and a colleague named George that knows she’s having an affair and uses it as leverage to make a move on her. She rejects and a violent rape scene occurs. Being the BBC, we have to assume they would never use such a delicate subject purely for shock value but it’s misguided allowing it to take place in such a pedestrian and poorly conceived drama.

It gives Yvonne motive for revenge now but it’s distasteful that the BBC would use rape as a cliff-hanger for what’s to come next.

Hopefully the first chapter was an awkward world setting requirement and improvements are inbound.

4/10

Moonlight – Review

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Thanks to Odeon’s Screen Unseen, I was able to see Moonlight earlier than most in the UK. It was a great surprise and afterwards make me realise something else – even more surprising – it isn’t the frontrunner for this year’s Academy Awards.

Let’s cut to the chase right there: Moonlight deserves to take home a lion’s share of the Oscars. It isn’t because it’s edgy or brave, it’s because it’s well-made, beautifully told, expertly acted. The content almost becomes secondary.

It follows the lead character through three stages of his life, divided here into chapters titled after his changing name. He starts as Little, a shy and reclusive boy that is victim to bullying. While it may be questionable that at such a young age, his peers would detect a difference in sexuality, it is the implied reason for the bullying.

He befriends drug dealer, Juan. He gives the boy a few insights, introduces him to his warm girlfriend, Teresa, and offers an alternative view that his crack addicted mother provides. That’s a bit of a niggle, the man he trusts is also the man selling the product that is ruining his home life.

Naomie Harris plays his mother, Paula, and it’s a testament to her acting prowess that a real-life teetotaller is more believable as a crack addict than as Naomie Harris in interviews. The general consensus is that she delivers the performance of the film but I find it debatable.

By high school, Little becomes Chiron, child actor Alex Hibbert becomes Ashton Sanders and it’s entirely believable they are one and the same. Here the bullies are more violent, the sexual desire more pressing. His mother’s addiction more crippling. Teresa his only safe haven following the passing of Juan.

By the third act we meet a redefined Chiron, now named Black, a hangover nickname from his best friend, turned sexual outlet, Kevin. He now runs the street, has beefed up and has a gangster vibe. Wearing a hat like Juan, he has inhabited the underworld (albeit in a different city) that shaped his early years.

At first, the change in character is jarring but it slowly sticks. Chiron still lacks the ability to string together long sentences and is, for all intents and purposes, an outcast. Beneath his new look, the same little boy exists.

I don’t see it as a film about sexuality or race or social class. It’s a story about Little aka Chiron aka Black. Society relies too much on labels and uses them too readily. This proves the world is just people. Different people with different struggles that shouldn’t be defined by pigeon holing.

It works, and deserves accolades, for the way it allows the viewer to connect with Chiron.

9/10

Jackie – Review

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With the Oscars now on everyone’s mind, a movie comes along with an unexpected bang. Jackie is the biopic that gives perspective on Jacqueline Kennedy’s struggle following the assassination of JFK. Director Pablo Larraín and leading lady Natalie Portman combine to produce a film that is destined to take awards.

Straight out of the blocks, this becomes obvious. There should never be any doubting Natalie Portman’s ability. Her Academy Award for Black Swan was deserved, but after a minute of seeing her as the title lead, it’s clear she is about to scale new heights. She really is that good here. To say “engaging” is an understatement. Playing the woman that was once above every female on earth, she steals the big screen and makes a world that is all hers.

The narrative follows suit. Jackie is sat with an unnamed journalist, pouring her heart out while strictly editing what is permissible to print. This interview then cuts between events, before and after the death of her husband, even from one interview to another. It is cleverly edited to create a cohesive stream of consciousness.

It does make you wonder if it is a work within a work. We see her retell the story as she wants it now, laid bare, revealing her historical interview to be a fictional tale. It begs the question: is this just a new fiction, shaped by the passage of time?

If it is a less-than-true account, it doesn’t matter. The power of the ideals and ideas deserve this platform.

Watching it, you feel as if it is the sixties. Clever cinematography and an aspect ratio that won’t leave borders when it anamorphic widescreens to your telly to create the illusion. The performers use the canvas well. Any danger the attempt to make the past feel alive at the expense of a modern big movie experience is cancelled out by Mica Levi’s score.

A feel that is pounding with drama and driven by Jackie’s heartbeat is taken to a dramatic high with the soundtrack. Which is no mean feat when the leading lady delivers so much.

Portman gives a decade defining, generation setting, career high performance.

It’ll be a matter of opinion if the graphic scenes are gratuitous. The horror is at first hinted, then after living Jackie’s pain (through Portman’s perfect performance), finally revealed in full. Did we need to see it? Perhaps. Why should the viewer be shielded from that haunting vision after being an emotional vampire on Jackie’s neck?

The most famous assassination in history now has a story that isn’t interested in any conspiracy. It’s about what the focus should have been all along: real people coping with loss.

Surprisingly, the film is a 100/1 shot for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and Pablo Larraín isn’t even getting a mention for Best Director. Natalie Portman is currently second favourite behind Emma Stone for Best Actress. If she doesn’t take the award, it will be a travesty. Whether or not the film sits right with you, is paced correctly, or has the intended impact, is subjective.

What is factual is how Portman’s performance surpasses anything else we’ll see this year – potentially this decade.

9/10

A Most Violent Year – Review

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Sometimes all the ingredients come along to make a modern day classic. We have Jessica Chastain, a strong showing from Oscar Isaac, JC Chandor pulling writing and directing duties, a moody 80s New York setting. Add to that an extensive out-pouring of positive critical reviews and nothing can go wrong, right? Wrong. All is not what it seems.

The premise is Isaac and Chastain play Abel and Anna Morales. Man and wife own and do the books for the Standing Heating Oil Company. While she’s juggling ever decreasing numbers on incomes sheets, he faces ever increasing odds to keep the company alive.

He wants to play it straight but his moral code is tested when his vehicles, containing the oil, are repeatedly stolen. With the loot missing, his financial situation is stretched. This becomes a vicious circle when he opts to purchase an oil terminal from a Jewish group but struggles to generate the required capital.

To make matters worse for Abel, David Oyelowo enters the fray as Lawrence who makes it clear he is investigating all his business deals. This prompts Anna to hide the books, even though they protest to playing it clean, and Abel feels the strain from all sides.

What follows is Abel facing attempted hits, one of his beaten drivers taking part in a shootout, and a race against time to keep his creditors at bay and get the cash for the terminal. The driver that secretly carried a firearm was Julian. The news of the impending criminal trial means the bank pull funding for the proposed oil terminal purchase.

Just what Abel needed. It also forms a subplot where Abel tries to find an on-the-run Julian so he can hand him over as a peace offering to Lawrence. Apparently, you’re not a tax evader if you give up gunmen.

It moves along with a steady pace but at times, not helped by the stylization, it feels more like a 70s TV detective movie than a well-produced blockbuster. The odd chase scene doesn’t levitate the film from its constant slumber. What we are left with is the hope Abel gets his money and identifies the thieves just to progress the story.

jessica-chastain-amvyMany people that have been wax lyrical over this have been seduced by the styling – and dare I say it? – believing that applauding this movie is some sort of reference point for being in the know. It’s a certain level of snobbishness that makes a person say this is a good film based on a below average script (it’s riddled with plot holes right up until the last scene), nostalgic cinematography, and a good performance from Jessica Chastain (when does she ever give a bad one?).

1981 may have been the most violent year on record in New York, this film however doesn’t reflect this. Everyone is in too much of a slumber to bother engaging in the violence we have to assume was happening all around them. It should be renamed: A Most Mundane Affair.

4/10