Movie Reviews: Jonathan Rhys Meyers perfectly cast as a complicated man
Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Edge of the World
Anthony Hopkins puts in one of the finest performances of his career in (12A), winning the Oscar and the Bafta for his role as Anthony, an elderly man being cared for by his daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman). A domineering old patriarch, Anthony rules his home, and Anne, with an iron will — or so he believes.
Suffering from the early stages of dementia, Anthony is no longer living in his own home, but in Anne’s, and struggles to differentiate between the past and the present. Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton also won the Oscar and Bafta, for Best Adapted Screenplay — Zeller directs, having co-adapted his own play — and little wonder: is not only clever but a heart-breaking account of the misery and horror of watching your identity, your very understanding of who and what you are, just slip away.
Zeller has assembled a very impressive cast: Olivia Williams, Mark Gatiss, Imogen Poots, and Rufus Sewell all co-star — but it’s what he does with his cast that is most impressive of all, with Olivia Colman and Olivia Williams, for example, both playing Anne, and occasionally swapping one for the other within scenes, thus giving the audience some sense of the bewildering disorientation that Anthony must experience when he fails to recognise his own daughter (the same dual function applies to Mark Gatiss and Rufus Sewell, both playing Anne’s husband).
Indeed, for much of the film the audience has very little idea as to whether they’re experiencing Anthony’s confused reality or a fantasy he has unconsciously constructed to compensate for his memory loss. But while the film certainly provides plenty of food for thought, it’s on the emotional level that it really hits home, and particularly in the latter stages, when Anthony’s rear-guard action against decrepitude finally collapses in on itself, leaving us with a finale that will haunt the viewer long after the credits roll. (cinema release)
The latest release from Pixar, (PG) is set on the Italian Riviera, and opens with young Luca (voiced by Jacob Tremblay), a shy sea-monster boy, encountering a human boy, the confident Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), when he is accidentally washed up onshore. It’s not a spoiler to say that Alberto is quickly revealed as a sea-monster boy himself, and that he and Luca are able to morph into humans while on land: the real essence of the story is the tentative friendship that develops as the boys set out to explore the dangerous world of humans.
Written by Jesse Adams and Mike Jones — the latter’s most recent writing credit is the superb Pixar movie — and directed by Enrico Casarosa, is a charming account of how the boys teach one another crucial life lessons, all the while trying to win the Portorosso Cup under the direction of the dynamic young go-getter Guilia (Emma Berman), whose only goal in life is to defeat the smarmy bully Ercole (Saverio Raimondo).
The Italian backdrop is beautifully rendered — the boys quickly make their way from their lonely island to a tiny seaside port that is, as you might assume, the quintessential Italian village of whitewashed houses and winding streets. And the writers have a lot of fun with mocking Italian stereotypes: Luca and Alberto might be sea-monster boys, but they are Italian sea-monster boys, and are thus obsessed with owning a Vespa. Fast-paced and funny, by turns raucous and touching, is an unruly but sweet-natured bromance. (Disney+)
Based on historical events, (12A) stars Cork actor, Jonathan Rhys Myers, as Sir James Brooke, an English aristocrat who travelled to Borneo in 1839 to escape his disgrace back home. An idealistic ex-soldier, naturalist and philosopher, the Koran-quoting James is initially welcomed by the Sarawak people, but quickly becomes embroiled in the political intrigues of Makhota (Bront Palarae) and Prince Badruddin (Samo Rafael), both of whom are jockeying for power with the ultimate goal being to succeed the all-powerful Sultan of Brunei.
Written by Rob Allyn and directed by Michael Haussman, might have been lifted directly from the pages of a Joseph Conrad novel: James Brooke is a Lord Jim figure, and a man who would (only reluctantly) be king. It’s gloriously old-fashioned matinee stuff, chockful of head-hunters and pirates, and teeming jungles and derring-do, with Brooke himself a world-weary romantic who refuses to take up the ‘white man’s burden’, preferring instead to go war against the British Empire on behalf of his adopted nation.
Jonathan Rhys Myers is perfectly cast as the Byronic figure of Brooke, a complicated man in a complex world where beauty and ‘savagery’ are very much in the eye of the beholder. (streaming release)
