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Family Review: Don Palathara’s Film Is Mellow, Incisive And Attentively Chiselled

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Family Review: Don Palathara’s Film Is Mellow, Incisive And Attentively Chiselled

A nonetheless from Household.

Solid: Vinay Forrt, Divya Prabha, Mathew Thomas, Nilja Ok Child, Jolly Chirayath

Director: Don Palathara

Ranking: 4 and a half stars (out of 5)

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The movie premiered on Saturday on the ongoing Worldwide Movie Competition of Rotterdam 2023

A delicate, penetrating and austere portrait of a rural group over which the Church holds sway in ways in which alternate between the important and the intense, Household, writer-director-editor Don Palathara’s sixth function movie, is an affidavit to his eager eye for element, agency grasp on the medium and talent to handle intricate, demanding themes with sensitivity.

The Malayalam movie, that includes Vinay Forrt and Divya Prabha in key onscreen roles, had its world premiere on Saturday within the Harbour part of the 52nd Worldwide Movie Competition of Rotterdam (IFFR, January 25 to February 5, 2023). That is Palathara’s second movie to make the IFFR lower. His Cinema is All the pieces was on the pageant in 2021.

Whereas Household marks a return to the Catholic setting of his first two movies, Shavam (The Corpse, 2015) and Vith(Seed, 2017), additionally it is a step ahead within the evolution of his refined craft and singular cinematic language. Within the span of eight years, Palathara has constructed a considerable physique of labor exceptional for its consistency. Household is a worthy addition to his oeuvre.

Household displays a posh actuality that doesn’t reveal itself both in its entirety or with absolute transparency. It’s a magnificently layered however minimalist depiction of the place and ethos that Palathara grew up in. His visible and narrative approach – restrained, tangential and loaded with which means – serves to deepen the drama of reality and obfuscation on the movie’s core.

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Couched within the movie’s unerring cultural specificity are common truths about human behaviour. The underlying details and sides of the story and the characters emerge via solutions and indirect, passing references reasonably than with assistance from direct verbal means. On the floor, there may be repose, even one thing akin to stasis. Beneath it lies a posh net of ethical misgivings and manipulations.

Produced by Newton Cinema and scripted by Palathara and Sherin Catherine, Household performs out in a small village the place the minutest of transgressions are usually amplified by gossip, prurient curiosity and collective censure whereas essentially the most grievous of misdemeanours are quietly willed away by a society adept at closing ranks to guard its perception programs.

Shot in heat, muted colors, the movie focuses the ambiguities and angularities inherent within the socio-religious panorama. IT employs episodic encounters to disclose the best way the group capabilities. Innocuous conversations conceal insidious details or comprise intimations of hazard. Nonetheless, nothing that the script spells out has the texture of mere chilly data.

The movie probes the human capability to deflect consideration and activate a defence mechanism when the household faces a menace. As a girl who has devoted herself to the service of God factors out, a household is not only a organic entity. It’s a social assemble that hinges on loyalty to the parish and on the unifying energy of prayer and repentance.

The central determine in Household, apart from the Church, the nerve-centre of all exercise, is Sony (Forrt), a do-gooder and busybody who’s at all times at hand to assist the villagers. He’s a person that the village and the Church can’t appear to do with out. “He is sort of a son to all of us,” says a nun.

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A graduate who as soon as ran a tuition centre and is now looking out for a proper job, Sony provides faculty youngsters classes in topics they’re weak in, takes the lead in voluntary initiatives, helps village ladies with their day by day chores, provides firm to the previous and ailing, attends youth league conferences and by no means misses holy mass.

Everyone – properly, nearly everyone – loves Sony. And Sony loves everyone. He’s a person who can do no improper. Or can he? Within the idyll that the village is on the face of it, there’s a leopard on the prowl. However the wild predator is not the one supply of unease and worry. The village has its share of different mishaps that set off alarm bells (however not in a literal sense as a result of the main target, in step with Palathara’s model, is on understatement).

An elopement has gone improper. The stigma triggers a dying by suicide. A rash schoolboy faces the results of a slipup. Different acts and secrets and techniques threaten to upset the fragile steadiness that has been fastidiously struck and sustained by the Church. Everyone is below scrutiny right here. Some pay the worth, others stroll free.

Because the darkness hiding beneath the floor creeps out from a void, the response from people who maintain the reins is swift and dependable. A self-willed pregnant younger lady, Rani (Divya Prabha, not too long ago seen within the 2022 Locarno title Ariyippu) is an unintended witness to what she has purpose to consider is a grave offence. However might she be imagining issues and leaping to conclusions? Gaslighting follows because the dominant forces take over.

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Early within the movie, a cow falls right into a pit constructed to entice a leopard. The villagers swing into motion to rescue the animal. A lot later within the movie, it’s a human who’s in a metaphorical gap. It’s the flip of the Church to stage a rescue act. However who must be saved and from whom and what are questions that stay enveloped in a haze.

The pacing of the narrative and the character of the framing by director of images Jaleel Badusha recommend each detachment and intimacy. The digicam by no means will get too near the characters and views the panorama, the village and its denizens from a calculated distance. It nonetheless reveals a whole, acutely etched world in all its width and depth.

Vinay Forrt fleshes out a personality with a number of conflicting shades with numerous effort to spare. The underplaying, which an integral a part of the design and the pitching of the movie, enhances the affect of the efficiency.

Divya Prabha, whose character represents a voice of purpose in a local weather the place appearances and artifices are of paramount significance, delivers a efficiency of nice emotional depth.

Household is a mellow, incisive, attentively chiselled movie that critiques the human obsession with self-preservation it doesn’t matter what the ethical value could also be. Each as a bit of cinema and a chronicle of the leopards that lurk in our midst, it’s a powerful accomplishment.

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The Idea of You first reviews: Anne Hathaway-Nicholas Galitzine’s rom-com debuts with 100% Rotten Tomatoes score

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The Idea of You first reviews: Anne Hathaway-Nicholas Galitzine’s rom-com debuts with 100% Rotten Tomatoes score

Anne Hathaway, known for her slice of life romantic movies had been involved with serious and pathbreaking stories lately. Fans were eagerly waiting her return in light-hearted love stories for quite some time. The actor has finally made her comeback with Michael Showalter’s rom-com The Idea of You. The movie is being hailed by critics after its premiere at SXSW for its feel-good moments and sparkling chemistry between Anne and actor Nicholas Galitzine. The initial first reviews of the film has got it a stellar response on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb. (Read more: The Idea of You OTT release date: Catch Anne Hathaway’s sizzling chemistry with Nicholas Galitzine)

The Idea of You starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine is soaring high in its first reviews.

Anne Hathaway shines in feel-good romantic comedy

The Idea of You scored 100% on Rotten Tomatoes on the basis of five reviews so far. A positive review by The Hollywood Reporter read, “The Idea of You functions best as a carefree treat — a feel-good romantic comedy that delivers some laughs and bursts with the magnetism of its lead. That it manages to wiggle in some lessons about self-discovery is merely a bonus.”

Hindustan Times – your fastest source for breaking news! Read now.

The Idea of You is a coming-of-age story on self-awareness

IndieWire lauded Anne’s acting prowess in its critique and wrote, “What makes the character fascinating and unique is how she is not trying to recreate her younger years or reclaim her lost youth. Instead, Solène is just finding herself in this new stage of her life, learning what she wants, and growing into her new self. Life doesn’t end on motherhood, let alone end on 40. There is still plenty of time to find yourself, find love, get a heartbreak and push yourself into more. Hathaway captures this with incredible vulnerability, but also a self-awareness and confidence in what she wants that makes Solène excel at both the comedy and drama of the story. Early on, Hayes says people don’t really know him, they know the idea of him. By the end of this adaptation, we get the full picture of this romance and the two people involved.”

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Anne Hathaway owns every scene in Michael Showalter’s rom-com

While appreciating the storytelling and characters, Variety in its review was quoted as, “The film version finds a solution that honors Lee’s intentions — the way Hathaway’s character puts any number of priorities ahead of her heart — while providing a more satisfying sense of closure for their on-and-off relationship. Galitzine, who played it so proper in Amazon’s Red, White & Royal Blue, turns up the emo charisma while relaxing his body language, letting the puppy dog eyes and tattooed torso do the talking (though the English accent doesn’t hurt). Still, this is Hathaway’s movie, and she owns it: independent, desirable and never, ever desperate. Solène’s a cool mom to Izzy, and when it comes to Hayes … ‘I could be your mother,’ she tells him. ‘But you’re not,’ he fires back. Wouldn’t want to get the wrong idea.”

The movie has also got a stellar 6.2 Score on IMDb. Anne will next be seen in David Lowery’s epic American melodrama Mother Mary.

The Idea of You is scheduled to release on Amazon Prime on May 2, 2024.

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‘She Looks Like Me’ Review: Family Secrets and Public Scandals Brush Shoulders In a Scattered Documentary

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‘She Looks Like Me’ Review: Family Secrets and Public Scandals Brush Shoulders In a Scattered Documentary

A tale of disability, abuse, expectations and family secrets, “She Looks Like Me” from director Torquil Jones has a headstart on most documentaries, given its subject matter’s winding twists and turns. Some key details end up obscured — there’s enough real-life material here to fill an entire miniseries — but the film has an alluring atmosphere, and is rife with enough intimate re-enactments, to be occasionally absorbing.

Dreamlike hymns echo off the walls of an ornate church in the movie’s opening scenes. These have little thematic bearing on the story, but they make for a vibrant aesthetic, appearing and reappearing during moments of quiet reflection. A now-adult Jen Bricker — a woman born without legs — narrates the broad strokes of her childhood, from her adoption in rural Illinois, to the way her parents and three older brothers raised her to believe she could do anything she wanted. Old photos and home videos paint a portrait of a precocious young girl, for whom interests like baseball, basketball and gymnastic tumbling weren’t insurmountable hurdles, but temporary challenges that she would inevitably overcome. However, when she finds herself drawn, as a seven-year-old, to the career of famous teenage gymnast Dominique Moceanu — to whom she bears an uncanny resemblance — family secrets begin to unravel.

While “She Looks Like Me” begins as a tale of Jen’s upbeat resilience and her curiosity about her biological family, its narrative becomes quickly bifurcated. It’s as much about Dominique’s childhood too. She occupies an entirely different world, to which Jones whisks us away by zooming into the corners of the Bricker family’s footage, to find TV screens playing broadcasts of Dominique competing. As Jen eagerly dotes upon the older athlete, she imagines a perfect life for her, but the truth is much darker, and is soon revealed once the movie switches perspective and begins telling Dominique’s story.

The actual connection between the two young girls (now women in their thirties and forties) isn’t all that hard to parse given the details laid out, and the movie is quick to reveal it too. However, despite Jen’s desire to meet her inspiration, “She Looks Like Me” bides its time and delays this tale of search and potential meeting, in favor of telling the stories of its two subjects in great detail. On one hand, it digs into the depths of Dominique’s rigorous upbringing by her gymnast parents, a pair of Romanian immigrants to the U.S. whose customs, according to Dominique, led to a culture of silence. This went hand in hand with an abusive environment on the USA Gymnastics team (a scandal that would eventually become public). On the other hand, it follows the ups and downs of Jen’s story after she leaves home for college, and brushes up against a world that isn’t prepared to treat a disabled woman with the amount of respect she has for herself.

Bodily insecurity is a major part of both women’s stories, from the expectations foisted upon young female gymnasts, to the surprising (and amusingly frank) admissions from Jen, whose self-image issues, it turns out, have little to do with not having legs. As Jen takes up a physically grueling passion of her own — aerial acrobatics — Jones and cinematographer Andrew White present graceful re-stagings of moments from her career, which make deft use of shadow and spotlight, and veer into rousing territory.

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However, the further “She Looks Like Me” goes on, the less it’s able to completely balance its competing narratives. Jen’s tale remains personal and familial. Meanwhile, as Dominique’s half of the movie becomes about her public advocacy, its framing becomes less intimate, widening its scope to include public figures like Simone Biles, rather than family members. This leaves a number of pressing questions unanswered when the two women’s lives finally intersect — questions Jen claims to have pondered as a child.

In pushing these elements into the backdrop, “She Looks Like Me” ends up skimming the surface of an emotionally explosive story, and rushes through its more discomforting beats, to arrive at payoffs that feel only semi-earned. Despite these flaws in its construction, the film proves riveting in isolated moments, enough to make it an intriguing watch, even though two women’s final steps toward much-needed catharsis unfold mostly off-screen.

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Argylle (2024) – Movie Review

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Argylle (2024) – Movie Review

Argylle, 2024.

Directed by Matthew Vaughn.
Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson, Sofia Boutella, Toby Haycock, Rob Delaney, Jason Fuchs, Jing Lusi, Alaa Habib, Alfredo Tavares, Tomás Paredes, and Richard E. Grant.

SYNOPSIS:

A reclusive author who writes espionage novels about a secret agent and a global spy syndicate realizes the plot of the new book she’s writing starts to mirror real-world events in real-time.

During a Q&A for her latest entry in her spy novel series Argylle, a reader asks if Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard, giving a performance that, without spoiling anything, demands physicality that she capably pulls off) is also a real spy, much like how James Bond author Ian Fleming and others were. She shoots down the theory, assuring the fan that she is a regular person who puts much research into her writing.

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Directed by Matthew Vaughn, this is an adaptation of the recently released book of the same name (written for the screen by Jason Fuchs), which is penned by a seemingly unknown woman named Elly Conway. There is a massively unhinged conspiracy theory that it is a pseudonym for Taylor Swift, something that I don’t believe for a second and that Matthew Vaughn has gone on record denying, but there are so many silly plot twists here that if the worldwide pop sensation did show up at some point here, somehow it would have fit right in.

Remember that none of this necessarily means Argylle is a smart film. Elly Conway, the character, just also happens to be a writer in the narrative here, finding herself wrapped up in danger and hunted by a nefarious spy organization similar to the one in her stories (there are four books in the fictional universe, and one she is currently writing.) Elly thinks she has the ending of her fifth novel in the series all figured out, ready to send it to print with a cliffhanger ending (Henry Cavill is who she visualizes as Agent Argylle, with John Cena portraying his sidekick Wyatt), except it turns out she will have to keep the story going as there are good and bad spies tracking her who believe that her mind and wherever she takes the story next is the solution to finding the real-life master list of scandalous details regarding career criminals.

While riding the train to visit her mother (Catherine O’Hara), a bearded, unkempt, and invasive but otherwise well-meaning man named Aidan (Sam Rockwell) sits down to read one of Elly’s novels before informing her that he is a spy despite his rugged appearance and that she will have to follow his lead to escape a horde of bad guys. The film immediately launches into a refreshing, creative burst of action that sees Sam Rockwell’s average dude spy battling several generic henchmen, while Elly occasionally sees her Argylle, Henry Cavill, engaged in the same combat, all of which feels like a challenging feat in editing and choreography to pull off, not to mention pleasingly stylistic. 

Would I have preferred if the narrative was far less intentionally stupid and more interested in deconstructing spies as characters and the default, handsomely charming appearances we give them in our minds? Sure, but Matthew Vaughn is still having playful fun during these action sequences, juxtaposing not only fantasy and reality, but Elly and the audience’s perception of what and who a spy can be. Regarding visual flair, it also fits in as a constant reminder that her fiction is coming to life.

However, Argylle is unquestionably a nonsensical movie with so many outlandish reveals that one of the twists is essentially a common trope just so the film can do a hard reset on who and what these characters are and want. From there, several more twists occur but with different characters in the action while inside an entirely different subgenre. The most that can be said is this: it is frustrating that even when everything is seemingly revealed about Argylle, Elly, Aidan, and the rest of her spy characters (played by an ensemble made up of exciting names such as the aforementioned John Cena, Ariana DeBose, and Samuel L. Jackson), it also feels like nothing is learned about any of them as people. Bryan Cranston also leads the rogue spy organization with an army of assassins searching for Elly, who brings his impeccable comedic skills to the villainous character.

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Certain story beats that Matthew Vaughn goes for just feel impossible to properly land amidst all this insanity. There is also no denying that Argylle sags in the middle when it is doing that reset, entering the realm of seemingly endless exposition. Once past that, Matthew Vaughn is alert to how nuts this all is, with characters even commenting so. 

Vaughn also uses this to his advantage to crank the action up to further outrageously gonzo levels, such as a sequence where a character skates with knives placed underneath their shoes, shooting hordes of enemies, or one that incorporates impressively choreographed dance moves and brightly colored smoke bombs into a thrilling shootout. Like most Matthew Vaughn films, there is also an upbeat licensed soundtrack playing to the violence. Admittedly, there is also some shoddy CGI, including a truly rough-looking car chase opening.

Argylle most definitely isn’t Matthew Vaughn’s strongest work as a storyteller, lacking the raw emotional hook from something such as Kingsman: The Secret Service or the political subtext found within X-Men: First Class, but he knows how to take something preposterous and amplify what makes it immensely fun. There are certainly some mixed thoughts to be had here, but there is one glaring positive: bold, bonkers action. He knows how the plant a character trait and pay that off later with some ludicrous and electrifying set pieces. 

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

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Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

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