Movie Reviews: Strangerland, Trumbo, Dad’s Army
The reason for their move is unclear, although we quickly learn that Matthew is deeply disturbed by 15-year-old Lily’s sexual precociousness.
When Lily and Tom go missing one night, local policeman Rae (Hugo Weaving) is baffled by their disappearance.
Did the siblings simply wander off into the trackless Outback?
Was Lily attacked and abducted?
Or is Matthew in some way responsible for his children’s absence?
Written by Michael Kinirons and directed by Kim Farrant, is on one level an atmospheric thriller as Rae investigates a number of suspects who might have played a part in Lily and Tom’s disappearance.
On a deeper level, however, — exhibiting superb control directing her debut feature — explores the consequences of repressed sexuality, and the ways in which the suppression of an instinctively natural human need can manifest itself in an unnatural fashion.
It’s a strong ensemble piece, with Weaving deftly underplaying his role as the taciturn but compassionate cop, and Brown making a memorable debut in her brief turn as Lily.
Kidman and Fiennes shoulder the burden of the drama, however, and their portrayal of a marriage cracking under unbearable strain is so compellingly raw as to be almost unwatchable at times.
Meanwhile, cinematographer PJ Dillon is the unsung hero, as he somehow manages to capture both the claustrophobic intensity of a small town marinating in suspicion and the exquisitely bleak emptiness of the vast Outback.
(15A) stars Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo, Hollywood’s highest earning screenwriter when the story opens in 1947.
Blacklisted shortly afterwards by Hollywood studios for his Communist leanings, Trumbo goes into artistic exile, churning out scripts under a nom de plume whilst publicly campaigning against the post-WWII anti-Communist hysteria that smeared names, destroyed careers, and ruined lives.
Cranston plays Trumbo (delightfully described by one of his peers as ‘a swimming-pool Soviet’) as a charming old rogue who is nevertheless firm in his political beliefs, although his air of put-upon saintliness does grow wearying after a time (the drama might have been better served if Trumbo wasn’t always so secure in his convictions).
Indeed, writer John McNamara and director Jay Roach apply some very broad strokes to this biopic, as Trumbo and his colleagues, among them Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg), find themselves ranged against an alliance of Hollywood’s finest who are campaigning against the insidious Communist threat, an alliance that includes John Wayne (David James Elliott) and the powerful gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren, who exudes malign mischief and steals every scene she’s in).
It’s a fascinating time and story but the rush to sanctify Trumbo results in a rather overlong and self-involved love letter to Hollywood’s principles and importance — the claim by one character, for example, that “movies are the most powerful influence ever invented” is the product of an imagination that simply hasn’t read enough books.
(PG) opens in 1944, with the world anticipating an Allied invasion of Nazi-held France.
When word arrives in Walmington-on-Sea that a German spy has landed on the south coast, it falls to the doughty men of the local Home Guard, led by Captain Mainwaring (Toby Jones), to save Britain from the dastardly Hun.
Fans of the classic 1970s sitcom will know in advance that things will not run smoothly for Mainwaring and his band of old (and some young) fogies, which includes Sergeant Wilson (Bill Nighy), Corporal Jones (Tom Courtenay), Private Godfrey (Michael Gambon), and Private Pike (Blake Harrison).
Matters are complicated by the arrival of glamorous journalist Rose Winters (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who is writing a story about the derring-do of the Home Guard, but who soon finds herself the subject of numerous amorous intentions — a development that does not endear Mainwaring & Co to their wives and girlfriends.
Oliver Parker’s direction leans heavily on nostalgia, as might be expected, but there’s an undeniably charming aspect to the old codgers who bumble through proceedings like so many geriatric Boy Scouts.
Toby Jones steals the show, maintaining Captain Mainwaring’s cast-iron sense of destiny despite a succession of pratfalls, assaults on his dignity, and ill-advised impressions of Winston Churchill.
Strangerland
Trumbo
Dad’s Army
