Movie reviews: From Mulan to I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Yifei Liu as Mulan.Â
The latest live-action remake from Disney, (12A) stars Yifei Liu as its eponymous heroine.
She impersonates a young man when she runs away from home to join the Chinese imperial army in order to defend the kingdom against the invading Böri Khan (Jason Scott Lee) and his Sorceress (Li Gong), who are plotting to usurp the Emperor (Jet Li).Â
Adapted from the 1998 animated original, the story is a timely one: born into a rigidly patriarchal society, the young Mulan, who is possessed of ‘the boundless energy of life itself’ (or chi), discovers that it’s only by being true to her feminine self that she can fully unleash her awesome power.Â
What follows is an action flick that boasts superb battle sequences (despite, or perhaps because of, questionable strategic decisions on both sides) and meticulously depicted spectacle, particularly when the story moves to the Imperial City, although it’s in the quieter passages, and especially in its depiction of Mulan’s fractious relationship with her father (Tzi Ma) and a burgeoning romance with fellow warrior Honghui (Yoson An), that the film delivers its most emotionally potent moments. Niki Caro’s direction delivers the broad sweep this epic tale deserves, Li Gong, Tzi Ma and Jet Li all contribute strong performances, but this is Yifei Liu’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and she delivers a powerhouse turn in vividly illuminating the yin and yang of Mulan’s personality. (Disney+)
(15A) stars Jessie Buckley as Lucy, who has been invited by her new boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons) to visit his parents’ farm in rural Oklahoma. Lucy’s rambling internal monologue / voiceover lets the viewer know that she’s having second thoughts about the relationship as they drive through a snowstorm, although Jake seems blissfully unaware of her dilemma – until, that is, he repeats something Lucy has just thought.Â
Is Lucy so distracted by her anxiety that she has accidentally spoken aloud? Or is there a less obvious and more sinister reason why Jake might have access to Lucy’s thoughts? Given that the writer-director is Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich), who adapts Iain Reid’s novel, the canny money is on the latter. When Jake and Lucy finally arrive at his parents’ farm, she discovers that his Mother (Toni Collette) and Father (David Thewlis) are deeply strange, but what makes the weirdness truly unsettling (think early David Lynch) is that it is all presented in a downbeat, prosaic way, all earthy tones and banal conversations full of non sequiturs, the dialogue and characters just a little skewed and disjointed, their relationships not quite connecting despite the social formalities being observed. It’s as if Lucy is living through a benign nightmare, the kind where you find yourself in a haunted house and only belatedly realise that you are the ghost.Â
The performances are excellent across the board, with Jessie Buckley in particularly fine form as the increasingly perplexed Lucy, and Kaufman in unusually restrained form at the helm. The result is a minor masterpiece, an American gothic that is sinister, bittersweet and – to quote Jake – ‘beautiful, in a bleak, heartbroken kind of way.’ (Netflix)
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(16s) stars Mark Rylance as the Magistrate who oversees a dusty outpost on the edge of an unnamed empire in an unspecified era. When Colonel Joll (Johnny Depp) arrives to investigate rumours of barbarians massing on the frontier, the Magistrate tries to persuade him that the native people are no threat, merely nomadic tribes passing through the lands their people have traversed for millennia. All to no avail: soon Colonel Joll is engaged in torture and brutal reprisals, which has the entirely expected result of transforming a previously placid native population into vengeful warriors.Â
Adapted by JM Coetzee from his own novel, and directed by Ciro Guerra, Waiting for the Barbarians takes its title from the Cavafy poem in which the existential threat of the barbarians shapes the way a society perceives itself. The thoughtful, considerate Magistrate is depicted as a Christ-like figure (he repeatedly washes the broken feet of a beggar woman) who fails to persuade the sadistic Joll and his lackey Mandel (Robert Pattinson) of the merits of love, peace and turning the other cheek; Joll fully understands that the barbarians are no threat, but that the civilian population require a bogeyman if they are to remain docile and obedient.Â
Strong performances – especially from Rylance and Gana Bayarsaikhan as the beggar woman – and a brilliantly conceived setting from production designers Crispian Sallis and Domenico Sica combine to deliver a story that is both timely and as old as the idea of empire itself. (various platforms)
