Movie Reviews
Film Review: Ben and Suzanne: A Reunion in Four Parts
An intriguing romantic relationship but also a series of issues in Ben and Suzanne: A Reunion in Four Parts
Shot in Sri Lanka, “Ben and Suzanne” is a film that unfolds on a number of levels, from a tour guide to the country to the exploration of a rather complicated relationship. It is Shaun Seneviratze’s feature debut and it was shot mostly with local non-actors.
Ben Santhanaraj travels to Sri Lanka in order to reunite with Suzanne Hopper, who works for a local NGO, after a long separation. However, although his plans were to see the country and have a good time with her, she is stuck with work, which comes up at any given time. As time passes, their relationship is being tested by both the fact and a number of other episodes, while the ego and individuality of both seems to place another set of burdens.
Allow me to start with the negative. There are two archetypes of Western people living in Asian countries, or even simply staying for a bit. The one is the ‘savior’ who probably works for a Western NGO and tries to help, considering their effort life-altering for the locals, in a most of the time rather big misconception. The second is the ‘tourist’ who just wants to have a good time inside the usual bubble tourists experience, retaining as many of the tendencies they keep in their country of living, frequently complaining about everything. These two rather annoying archetypes do not represent everyone of course, but are quite prevalent, and they are also exactly the personas of the two protagonists. Suzanne is the ‘savior’ and Ben is the ‘tourist’.
Expectedly, and considering they both consider their wants as above everything, they soon find themselves clashing, with each one, but particularly Ben actually flaunting the aforementioned to each other, in probably one of most entertaining and realistic aspects of the narrative. At the same time, though, and in a yet another annoying aspect of the movie, there is no indication why those two ever got together. They seem to have nothing in common, or ever had for that matter, maybe except from the fact that he likes to make her laugh by clowning and she is quite susceptible to it. Whether that is enough for a relationship does not sound like a question with a positive answer.
The above essentially makes the whole approach of the movie somewhat naive, particularly because it also includes an outsider’s epidermal view of the country, especially when one compares it with a similar film we watched recently, “Paradise” by Prasanna Vithanage, or any other local films for that matter.
There are, however, a number of things that do work for the film. For starters, the chemistry of the two protagonists is impressive, with Anastasia Olowin as Suzanne and Sathya Sridharan as Ben presenting the fact that they have known each other for some time and that they both have changed quite eloquently. Their rapport is quite entertaining to watch, particularly in the erotic scenes and the moments they have fun with each other. Their fights could have been handled a bit better, but overall, this aspect is one of the best of the movie.
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The same applies to the cinematography, with the 1:1 ratio giving a very appealing retro essence to the movie, and the overall capturing of the country by Molly Scotti is occasionally impressive to watch, despite the focus on realism. Joe Violette’s editing could have been a bit better in the succession of the scenes, but the overall pace is definitely fitting.
“Ben and Suzanne” has its merits, and the relationship in its center is appealing to watch. However, it frequently feels as a film that was supposed to be shot in the US, just found itself in Sri Lanka without being able to realize the difference or what to do with the fact.
Movie Reviews
Movie Review: ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ | Recent News
“A Quiet Place: Day One” made a grave miscalculation with its advertising. Scenes were filmed with the intention of putting them in the trailers, but not the movie. This way, when people saw the movie, they wouldn’t be able to properly anticipate the surprises and story progression. To that end, the advertising succeeded, I was indeed thrown off while watching the movie. But here’s where they didn’t succeed: the scenes shot just for the trailers were terrible, with clumsy dialogue and careless pacing. I was so mad at Hollywood for continuing this series without the creative vision of director John Krasinski, especially when the movie looked like garbage without his input. I only saw this movie out of obligation for the column, and I wouldn’t be surprised if fans of the series stayed away entirely because of those awful trailers. But it turns out that not only is this movie better than the trailers, it’s better than the two installments that Krasinski directed.
“Day One” casts aside the familiar Abbott family in favor of new protagonist Sam (Lupita Nyong’o). Sam is a cancer patient taking a trip from her hospice to Manhattan along with her nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff) and service cat Frodo. Sam only agrees to the trip on the condition that the group stop for pizza at her favorite place in Harlem. The sudden invasion of echolocating aliens means a delay in pizza. Honestly, Sam is only interested in self-preservation to the end that it means eventual pizza.
Sam shelters in place for a bit with Reuben, who has a great scene where he stares down an alien like he’s staring down death itself. Also in the shelter is familiar character Henri (Djimon Hounsou) from “Part II” of the series, here forced to make an unthinkable decision. She moves on to helping some children in Central Park before finding a companion in anxious wreck Eric (Joseph Quinn). Can the two survive in alien-infested New York long enough to get a slice of pizza? If so, what happens after that?
“Day One” has the most suspense yet for a “Quiet Place” movie. It was scary enough that characters had to keep quiet to save their lives on a family farm or in small town. But in New York, the noises are as big as the pizzas. Speaking of food, I wonder if the characters’ best bet for survival would be to let the aliens fill up on noisy people and then hope they’re too stuffed to give chase. Maybe that’s why the film’s biggest flaw is that the main characters get away with making as much noise as they do.
The film does an excellent job of wringing scares out of not only the slightest sounds, but loud-looking images. Even with everybody promising to be quiet, a crowd of people is going to make noise eventually, that’s just how crowds are. So if the characters find themselves as part of a crowd, the clock is already ticking. And that’s with a reasonable amount of effort being made. Some people just aren’t cut out for quiet, and associating with those people in this environment could prove fatal.
“A Quiet Place: Day One” had me afraid to breathe loudly in the theater, a testament to the film’s immersiveness. And yet, the suspenseful atmosphere is only the second-best thing about the movie. The real star here is, well, the star: Lupita Nyong’o. This movie doesn’t have returning players John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, or even recent Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy, and Nyong’o makes up for all of them. One way or another, Sam doesn’t have much time left on this Earth, but you’ll want to be there for every moment. It took until nearly the exact halfway point of the year, but I think we have our first serious contender for an acting Oscar. Not bad for a movie whose advertising had me thinking it would be one of the worst films of the year.
Grade: B
“A Quiet Place: Day One” is rated PG-13 for terror and violent content/bloody images. Its running time is 100 minutes.
Robert R. Garver is a graduate of the Cinema Studies program at New York University. His weekly movie reviews have been published since 2006.
Movie Reviews
Movie review: 'Despicable Me 4' fun for kids, nightmare for adults
Movie Reviews
‘Kinds of Kindness’ review: Darkly comedic anthology explores humanity
Throughout his filmography, Yorgos Lanthimos is interested in themes of love and obsession, often explored with characters, who seem to be living on the edge of normal society, as evident in 2009’s Dogtooth, which centered on a husband and wife who keep their children ignorant of the world outside their property well into adulthood. 2024 is already quite the year for the Greek director as his previous outing Poor Things has been a critical and commercial success that has won four awards at this year’s Oscars, and now his latest feature Kinds of Kindness is finally released.
Amidst the Frankenstein-like science and “furious jumping”, Poor Things is more of a crowd-pleaser through its story of self-discovery within the harsh reality of the otherwise outlandish world. Reunited with his long-time collaborator/co-writer Efthimis Filippou, Kinds of Kindness – set in modern-day New Orleans – is closer to Lanthimos’ earlier work like The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, where people are plunged into situations that effectively shake up their lives and lose any touch of humanity in order to get out of it.
Since Lanthimos’ films often challenge you, though not without some dark humor creeping into the mix, Kinds of Kindness is essentially three films for the price of one, with the same seven actors – Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn and Mamoudou Athie – appearing in each one in a different role.
The first of which, titled “The Death of R.M.F”, is about Robert Fletcher (Plemons) who follows every order that is given to him by his controlling boss, Raymond (Dafoe), until he refuses to do an act which causes his life to fall apart. Similar to Lanthimos’ 2019 short film Nimic, it is a darkly funny study of a man who regrets this one decision and how it spirals out of control, with an extraordinary turn from Plemons, who tries to maintain his composure and yet it looks he’s about to break.
Considering the disturbing outcome of the first narrative, it feels tamed compared to the second story, “R.M.F. is Flying”. Left emotionally devastated after the disappearance of his wife Liz (Emma Stone), a marine biologist, police officer Daniel (Plemons) receives a call saying she has been rescued. As she returns home, her strange and seemingly reversed behavior leads to Daniel suspecting her of being an imposter. As well as being more disturbing and ambiguous than the other two narratives, “R.M.F. is Flying” cements a central theme which is somewhat meta to the film’s multiple casting of the same actors, playing characters who are wrestling with their own identity. Playing a married couple that is becoming more about obsessive delusions, leading to horrific abuse, Stone and Plemons are amazing in roles where you can’t tell whose side you should be on, if any.
As great as Emma Stone is in the first two narratives, it is in “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich” where she really gets to shine, and yes, this is where she performs her improvised dance that has been used in the film’s promotion. In this third and final instalment, Emily and Andrew (Stone and Plemons) are two cult members who are looking for a woman with the ability to bring back the dead. Considering this is the closest to a Coen Brothers film, where it almost feels like an enjoyable crime caper, what could easily be a cautionary tale about not joining a sex cult led by Dafoe’s Omi, the story makes a dark implication into why Emily would choose the life of a cultist, as seen in a scene where she revisits her old life as a mother and a wife.
Considering the hopeful nature and visual experimentation of Poor Things, whether consciously or not, it feels Lanthimos wants to return a world where there is no positive outcome of anybody, whilst cinematographer Robbie Ryan, shooting on 35mm Kodak film, presents a stunning, if mundane look of the many settings of New Orleans. Amongst the loose connective tissue between these three tales, including the brilliant cast and similar locations, the only sense of hope that Kinds of Kindness is the dreams that some of the characters have and no matter how nonsensical they are, it is better than the harshness that the real world can throw at them. One dream involving dogs delivers the biggest laugh-out-loud film of the entire film.
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