(Warning: contains spoilers for Manchester By The Sea)
I feel this should come with more warnings. Warning: loooong film. Warning: bleak, traumatic film. Warning: no smiling. Manchester By The Sea stands as the poster child for Oscars 2017 theme of grief.
He's not happy
Casey Affleck - correction - Academy Award winner, Casey Affleck - plays Lee Chandler, a janitor in Massachusetts who, aside from the odd frustrated outburst at unreasonable tenants, leads a quiet and meagre existence in his basement flat. Following the sudden death of his brother, Lee returns to his hometown (the eponymous Manchester-by-the-Sea) and finds himself named as the unwilling, legal guardian of Patrick, his teenage nephew. The two try to find middle ground as Lee is desperate to leave and Patrick is desperate to stay.
In some ways it is easy to draw comparisons to Jackie, the Pablo Larrain film about the assassination of JFK that also garnered awards buzz. Both use the same technique of a confusing timeline, where sudden intrusive flashbacks are prevalent in the narrative. Some are relatively benign, some are brutal. And, again, that's grief - you find your mind wandering to events of years ago. Like watching YouTube videos - you start off watching one thing, and then suddenly you're 10 clips on, with no idea of what you were trying to do in the first place.
In other ways, it's a film about people who cannot communicate with each other. A lot of the tension could be avoided if any of the characters could just summon the strength to talk to each other, but each is completely overwhelmed by the hand that life has dealt them. Most of all, Lee Chandler - a man who no longer believes he is deserving of any joy in his life, and goes out of his way to avoid kindness: the offer of a home cooked meal, companionship, a nicer flat, a better job, or his ex-wife's forgiveness. It's arguably why he no longer wants to go out on the sea anymore either. The only time we see Lee smile is when he's on a boat - and he's now in a self-imposed purdah. I would have liked more time with Michelle Williams' character (Randi) - but she was very underused. Maybe a deliberate choice - another nice thing that Lee no longer allows himself.
She's not happy either
Affleck's performance is well deserving of his awards, but it's difficult to point definitively to his "Oscar moment" because everything is so internalised. There is no cathartic moment of release, there is no monologue. There's just small uncomfortable gestures, as Lee shows us that he just doesn't know how to be anymore. It's seen when he goes to see his brother's body in the morgue and can't quite work out what to do with his hands. It's seen in his bemused expression when he wakes up from a gut-punch of a dream to discover that he's left the stove on and the house is full of smoke.
This is what I got when I googled "nobody is happy". Better not tell Kenneth Lonergan or he'll try to make the film bleaker.
For all it's bleakness, there are a lot of wry laughs along the way. Nothing massive, just lots of sideways glances, rolled eyes and interruptions. The stupid things that happen that make people laugh. Like when Lee's brother Joe is told he has congestive heart disease. "It's not a good disease" notes his doctor. "Hmm", muses Joe "what is a good disease?" leading to Joe and Lee giggling about athlete's foot, while their mother gets offended and berates their callousness.
There's some unusual choices by director Kenneth Lonergan - we keep entering the action just after something has already happened, or leaving just before the conclusion. Lee gets to the hospital after his brother's death, we aren't privy to the scene where Patrick is told that Lee is his guardian, we join his police interview at the end rather than the beginning, the scenes with Patrick's biological mother and her fiancé end abruptly with an email coda. A number of scenes (for example - the recurring scenes of Patrick's band lambasting the drummer) feel like they're building to something and then don't. Even the ending of the film feels like we missed a conversation along the way as it ends with Lee and Patrick fishing. The audience is left to fill in a lot of blanks. As such, I'm torn. On one hand I feel like there's a lot left to explore in Manchester-by-the-Sea, but I'm in no great hurry to return.
As previously mentioned, I am a sucker for an awards film, and the Oscars is biggest film award. Duly, I have watched as many of these as possible and so here are my predictions for tonight's Oscars. Some of them are little more than a coin toss, though. Some difficult categories to choose from. But here's what I think...
Best Picture: La La Land
There's nothing else nominated that looks like it or sounds like it, and it comes as a welcome relief in a year where the overall theme of these movies seems to be grief. Plus Hollywood likes to award prizes to films about Hollywood, and La La Land is that film.
There's an outside chance it might be Moonlight, but my money's on La La Land.
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Denzel Washington (Fences)
This is one of the categories that is a coin toss. It's between Washington and Casey Affleck (Manchester By The Sea). Both dominate their films, and both are great performances. The difference is this: Affleck's is a quiet, subtle, barely-hanging-in-there performance, and Washington's is bolder and brassier and more in your face. I couldn't easily pick out the scene in Manchester by the Sea that you would point at and say "that, there, defining moment".
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Emma Stone (La La Land)
Another coin toss. It's between Stone and Natalie Portman (Jackie). It feels like Emma Stone has spent the past couple of years paying her dues in comedy, then moving into award nominations (Birdman), and this will scrape her the award. Portman's portrayal is fantastic, but maybe a touch too alienating?
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
I'll be honest, it's not a film I've seen, but this seems to be where the hype is.
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Viola Davis (Fences)
I was rooting for Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures) until I saw Fences. Great performance, and it takes a lot to be able to stand next to Denzel Washington, match him and not get overshadowed.
Animated Feature Film: Zootopia/Zootropolis
One of the best films of last year.
Best Cinematography: La La Land
Costume Design: Jackie
Best Directing: Damien Chazelle (La La Land)
Documentary: 13th (Ava DuVernay)
Best Music (Original Score): La La Land
Best Original Song: City of Stars (La La Land)
Best Short Film (animated): Piper
Best Adapted Screenplay: Arrival (I want Arrival to win something - it was fantastic) Best Original Screenplay: La La Land
Fences has been a long time in the making. Based on the 1985 Pulitzer and Tony award winning play by August Wilson, he refused permission for any non-black director to work on his play, stating that "whites have set themselves up as custodians of our experience". Wilson died in 2005, but his decree was absolute, and so his estate released the rights to the screenplay to Denzel Washington who directs and acts in this production.
Fences. They keep people in. They keep people out.
Troy Maxson (Washington) is a waste collector who lives in 1950s Pittsburgh with his wife, Rose (Viola Davis) and their son Cory. We learn about Troy's life and beliefs as the play goes on. I mean, film. Except it is a play. It looks like a play and it sounds like a play. This isn't meant as a criticism, it's just how the film is set up. Other characters come and go, but mainly they teach us more about Troy. How he is as a father, a husband, a colleague, a brother.
The fences referred to in the title refer to the fence that Rose has asked Troy to build around their property, a source of tension between him and Cory. It also harks back to the saying "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". This defines Troy's life - it's one full of "if only's". Everyone else has things a little better, life would be better if he was...with another woman/had been a baseball player/could read/had more money. Troy is a fascinating character - he fills and dominates the screen, and Washington plays him with a barely contained anger. He is one of those people who is the absolute life and soul of the party until someone says something that displeases him, and then all of a sudden the party is over...
That said, he's also weak and strong, pitiful and commanding, intelligent and a fool.
There's a good chance that Denzel Washington will get a Best Actor Oscar, but he has Casey Affleck to beat and I can't comment...yet. But Affleck has some ways to go to be better than Washington's Troy.
Playing across from him is Rose, who helps smooth Troy's rough edges. Having only just seen Hidden Figures, and being sure that Octavia Spencer was going to get the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, I'm now convinced it will go to Viola Davis. Her portrayal of Rose is one of a woman loves her man but who knows what Troy is like, listens to the same stories again and again, knows which arguments to leave alone, and which to fight. And when she fights, she goes toe-to-toe with Troy. Her "big speech" is heartbreaking, about how she had married him because she loves him and soon afterwards realises that he is too hard and bitter a character to love her back in the same way, but that she never cared because she chose to be in the marriage for the long haul. She's a useful character because she tells us how to respond to Troy (it's surprisingly difficult to tell if Troy is angry or not - Rose's laughs and smiles guide the audience through his moods) She is fierce and vulnerable, and Davis deserves every award she's up for.
Rose is happy - so we know to be happy too.
Given the understandable furore in recent years about #Oscarssowhite, I wonder if this film would have made the Best Picture list in any other year. Although it's a very engaging story, it's a play, not a film. This is a film with a black cast, black director, black writer, about black issues - it almost feels like the Academy is trying a bit too hard. I doubt it will win Best Picture, but it will be going home with well-deserved awards.
Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
If Denzel Washington gets the Best Actor Oscar, he will become the third man to have three acting Oscars, after Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis.
Lion - film about a boy in India who grows up to become Dev Patel. Same as Slumdog Millionaire? Well, yes, that bit is, but the rest of it - not so much.
The film that made checking Google Earth look interesting
Five year old Saroo (a beautifully engaging debut from Sunny Pawar) and his family all do their parts to bring money to the family. Wanting to spend more time with big brother Guddu, he wheedles and begs (as only little siblings can) to come along on a night time job, and gets lost when he accidentally gets carried off on a freight train. Suddenly, he is 1600km away from home, unable to speak the language and, with a 5 year-old understanding of the world, doesn't know where he is or who his family are (because at 5, your mum's only name is "mum"). Relying on a basic survival instinct, Saroo navigates various harms and winds up on a childrens home, where he is subsequently adopted by an Australian couple - Sue and John Brierley - and moves to Tasmania.
Skipping to the present day (2008), Saroo has turned into Dev Patel, who has a sudden moment of remembrance as he tries jalebi (the sweet delicacy he was never able to afford as a child) in university. He begins a quest to find his biological family using the newly established Google Earth, and the haziest of landmarks from the back of his memory.
Jalebi - totally good for you, they taste like the frosting on Krispy Kremes.
The film is based on the book (A Long Way Home) of the real life story of the real life Saroo, and it makes for a good film. The story is told very efficiently - there is very little time spent with Guddu and Saroo, but their relationship is quickly very realistic, and the actions of both are very understandable. The scenes of a young Saroo, lost in the crowds of Calcutta are vivid and overwhelming, and director Garth Davis (in a strong directorial debut) filmed these scenes at knee height - so we experience what Saroo experiences: legs and knees, and blurred, unfamiliar crowds. We have all been lost at one point or another, and Lion does an excellent job of capturing the bewildering horror of not knowing where you are, and not knowing how to make yourself understood. The horrors that young Saroo faces are not always clear - there are people that he runs from that we instinctively understand to be "bad", even though they have not done anything to suggest that belief. Maybe that was the point - it doesn't matter if people are bad or not: if you're scared, run.
The Brierley's story, though a sub-plot, is equally compelling. Played quietly and sensitively by Nicole Kidman (an adoptive parent herself) and David Wenham, they decide not to have any biological children (believing the world too overpopulated) and only adopt. After having such success with Saroo, (who appears to have adapted to his new life well) they adopt Mantosh - a boy of a similar age who has issues of rage and self harm because of his own traumatic history, and the idyll of family life as a three becomes difficult as a family of four.
Adult-Saroo walks a tightrope of being desperate to find his biological family, while not causing distress to his adoptive family. His task appears insurmountable, and Davis does a great job of a. making someone looking on Google Earth interesting and b. demonstrating the enormity of that task using an increasing amount of maps and drawing pins.
Saroo's family are somewhere in this circle. Easy, right?
The film's conclusion packs an emotional punch, and it is worth staying around for the credits, in which photographs and updates from the real Saroo bring us up to the present day. It's one of the few films I've been to where the audience didn't just get up as soon as the credits started rolling (why do people do that? Even in Marvel films where there's ALWAYS extra stuff?). Worth seeing. It will stay with you long after the film has finished.
Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
This has picked up six Oscar nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Dev Patel), Best Supporting Actress (Nicole Kidman), Best Film, Best Score, Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay. Tough categories. If I was guessing, I'd say it's not going to win any, which is a shame. But I would be happy to be wrong.
It's interesting to see how far Google Earth has come on since 2008. The blurriness of the detail that Saroo deals with makes his task all the more impressive.
I like puns. Here's one: someone threw a box of Omega-3 pills at my head, but my injuries are just super fish oil. It's a stupid play on words, but it made me laugh (but possibly only me, or else I have to work on my delivery). The next pun I found was in the title of the most recent film I saw - Hidden Figures. This refers to the mathematical equations that had to be invented and performed by NASA in order to correctly calculate all the zillions of things that would help them win the space race. Secondly, it refers to the protagonists of the film - a small group of African-American women, who all played their part in contributing to that mission, while living and working in a racially segregated America. The tagline reads: "Meet the women you don't know, behind the mission you do."
See - the tagline is right there.
Certainly, this isn't a story that I've heard of before and it is one worth telling. It tells us of how far we've come in some ways, and how far we still have to go. We're introduced to three women who travel to work together in NASA, and the various small battles they encounter everyday because of the colour of their skin.
Katherine (Taraji P. Henson) works as a computer (interesting historical detail - a "computer" used to be a job title. As in, one who computes) in NASA, assigned to a Space Task Group and working with Al Harrison (Kevin Costner, reprising his role as man wearing white shirt in a government job) and Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons, might as well be reprising his role as Sheldon Cooper). Although she is assigned because of her competence, she is the only woman in the room, and the only person who is not white. There are variations on ignorance from the men she works with. It has not occurred to anyone that the only bathroom she is permitted to use is in a building half a mile away ("we all pee the same colour at NASA" an exasperated Harrison comments when he is made aware of the issue). But there is a pointed nastiness when a second coffeepot is produced on her second day, with a label "colored" affixed to it. Katherine's work is accepted, but from a distance, and as long as she doesn't touch anything. Katherine's scenes are initially played for laughs as she runs backwards and forwards to the bathroom, but when she grows tired of the constant small barbs, and calls out the perpetrators (both the well-meaning and the malicious), her words cut deeply. A small moment which goes uncommented upon is when Katherine is called across campus (to the building where her bathroom is located), escorted by one of her younger male counterparts. She runs in heels, holding an armful of files, effortlessly. Her escort, in flat shoes and unencumbered, is winded halfway through the journey - a visual representation of the maxim that you will understand someone better when you've walked a mile in their shoes.
Katherine is a real, still-living person, who is currently 98, and recently received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. It's worth reading more about her. You can start here:
Dorothy (Octavia Spencer), is a mathematician, working as a supervisor for the "Coloured Campus" at NASA, but denied the title and pay because of her colour. Shrewdly noting that IBM computers are coming to NASA, and realising that one machine that can do 24,000 calculations a second will shortly render all in her department obsolete, she learns FORTRAN (an early programming language) and begins teaching it to all in her campus, thus securing their future employment.
Mary (Janelle Monae) is encouraged to become an engineer - an idea that is unheard of for women, let alone black women. In order to take the necessary classes, she must first petition the courts to allow her to attend a "white-only" school.
Throughout, there are scenes of the women in their lives outside of work, where they are wives, mothers, girlfriends, members of the public. Those roles are also tainted by the segregation of the country.
This film is fab. It's inspiring, uplifting, and surprisingly feel-good and funny given the subject matter. It is also a pointed reminder of what humanity has come from relatively recently, and what we could be capable of again, given certain conditions. It shows that we can simultaneously be progressive and reductive. It also shows that progress comes in lots of small but significant ways - the man who holds a door open for Katherine, the colleague who makes her a coffee, the person who lends her his phone at a point of crisis, the supervisor who addresses Dorothy as an equal. It also shows how tenuously any "-ism" is built, the danger of not challenging things because "that's how they've always been", and how quickly an "-ism" can be overcome (for example, when Al Harrison lets Katherine into the daily briefings, because it makes more sense to keep her up to date with the calculations that have to be made).
It's a film that shows how great people can be.
It's a film that shows how stupid people can be.
Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
It's unclear to me why NASA hired so many highly skilled black staff, and then put so many restrictions on them.
In an interesting twist from the norm, the white people in this film are little more than ciphers. Jim Parsons, Kirsten Dunst and, arguably, Kevin Costner are poorly served by an otherwise cracking story, and I would have liked to have understood their points of view and actions a little better, especially after such a throwaway line between Dunst and Spencer ("You know, I really don't have any issue with any of you people." "Yes ma'am. I think you honestly believe that").
I really like films that can take complicated and unfathomable (to me) topics and make them matter. I have no idea what any of the calculations in this film mean, but I do understand that if they don't get it right, John Glenn will die in space, and this will be bad. Well, fair enough then.
Part of the reason that would be particularly bad is because John Glenn gets some small but significant scenes in this film. One of which is when he specifically asks Katherine to check all the figures, because no one entirely trusts the IBM computer calculations. How times have changed.
Octavia Spencer for Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner, please.
(Warning: contains spoilers about The Lego Batman Movie)
When a film has a break out star, a cry almost always goes up that they should have their own film/television programme/breakfast cereal. This is risky because too much of a good thing can quickly become tiring. In recent years, breakout stars have included Captain Jack Sparrow (the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) and the Minions (the Despicable Me franchise). Arguably, we are already seeing diminishing returns for both (to the extent that an audible groan could almost be heard when Johnny Depp announced his intention to star in the 5th Pirates film).
The Lego Movie came out 3 years ago (Really? 3 years already?) to near-unanimous critical and box-office acclaim, and Batman became one of the stand-out characters. And, as the opening paragraph would suggest, now here we are with the spin off: The Lego Batman Movie.
Coming your way to a cinema near you
The plot is fairly simple. Commissioner Gordon is retiring and his daughter (Barbara) is taking over his role. Rightly pointing out that despite his vigilantism, Gotham City remains the city with the highest levels of crime ever. She suggests that the police stop working with Batman, and that the police should try the new tactics of being "accountable and extra legal". Batman is displeased and strops off to be by himself in his BatCave eating microwaved lobster thermidore, playing electric guitar and watching Jerry Maguire. And accidentally adopting a child, because he wasn't paying attention. After hurting the Joker's feelings by suggesting that he isn't his number one nemesis (a kind of love/hate bromance where Batman refuses to commit), the Joker releases everyone from the Phantom Zone (a kind of Guantanamo Bay for villains including Voldemort, King Kong, Sauron, Agent Smith and the Wicked Witch of the West. And British robots. Which aren't Daleks.) Chaos ensues.
Notably, there are no references to The Lego Movie. If anything, this is a sequel to the Batman films, and arguably should stand in its canon. Certainly, it is an antidote to the noir Batman movies of Christopher Nolan and Zach Snyder. Maybe audiences have tired of brooding superheroes with their increasingly dark plotlines for now - the crowd pleasers seem to be the more irreverent and meta Avengers (and their component individual character movies) and Deadpool. Or (and I'm just throwing this out there), maybe audiences are just responding positively to scripts and characters that aren't dreadful (*awkward cough* Suicide Squad, Batman Vs Superman *awkward cough*).
There are themes worth exploring - Batman/Bruce Wayne fears intimacy after the death of his parents and lacks purpose when his job (and with it, his identity) is taken from him. His relationship with Alfred. ("I've seen you in this mood before in 2016, 2012, 2008, 2005, 1997, 1995, 1992, 1989 and that weird time in 1966"). The importance of family. Loneliness. And those themes are explored well, without hanging heavily.
It's worth seeing this film at the cinema, and being slightly overwhelmed by the colour and noise of it all. Films like this benefit from a big screen, and from multiple viewings. Lego is a cross-generational toy, and it makes sense that the film should be a cross-generational movie. So while the kids in the screening I saw laughed at Dick Grayson ripping off his pants ("RRRIIIIIPPP"), the reference to the films at Gotham Multiplex (Two Shades of Grey) might have passed them by. And...it makes Bane better.
He was born in the darkness. Apparently.
It lacks a little bit of something (perhaps the innocence of The Lego Movie), but it is a heavy dollop of Batman and makes up for a lot of Batman Vs Superman. A little less Everything is Awesome, but Everything is Cool if You're Part of a Team. Pow! Bang!
Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
Excellent voice casting, particularly from Will Arnett as a gravel-voiced, Bale-type Batman. Ralph Fiennes also excellent casting as Alfred, though an odd decision given that Lord Voldemort is also in this film (voiced by Eddie Izzard). Maybe a licensing issue?
Nice line from Barbara Gordon "you could be Batgirl!" "Please! I would be Batwoman."
Best (and surprisingly moving) use of One is the Loneliest Number since Magnolia.
Do all animated films now start with a film short?
(warning: contains spoilers for T2: Trainspotting and Trainspotting)
"So what have you been up to for the past 20 years?"
What have any of us been up to? Surely Trainspotting wasn't 20 years ago? Curse you, linear progression of time. In 1996, John Major was the prime minister, it was the age of Britpop, Dolly the Sheep had just been cloned, the Spice Girls were starting out, and Trainspotting became the highest grossing British film of the year.
When I was younger...
The original followed a group of heroin addicts in a deprived area of present-day Edinburgh and ended with a major drug deal which landed main characters Renton (Ewan McGregor), Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller), Begbie (Robert Carlyle) and Spud (Ewan Bremmer) with £16,000. Renton steals the money, leaves some for Spud, and flees. T2 pretty much checks in with these characters 20 years later.
What results is that most unusual of things - a great sequel, aware of its roots, and keen to continue the story it started and add a bit. Everything is the same but different, from the characters to the city itself. You can see it's 1996 self, but it's not quite that anymore. Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie and Spud are now Mark, Simon, Francis and Murphy. They're pretty much where we expect them to be. Mark is now clean, still running, but its a more sedate pace on a treadmill rather than the run-for-your-life of the original. He moved to Amsterdam, and has been there since 1996, coming back only because life has demanded it. Francis is in prison, denied parole, planning an escape by self injury and banking on the incompetence of G4S the service in charge of the fictitious HMP Edinburgh. Simon is pimping out his girlfriend to high end clients, and then extorting money from them in exchange for secrecy about their sordid sex acts while snorting a lot of cocaine. Spud is still a heroin addict, sad and alone because he doesn't quite understand a world without drugs ("but I gave you £4000" says Mark in disbelief, "Aye, but I'm a fucking heroin addict so what did you think I was going to spend it on" spits Murphy).
So much younger than today...
Their lives are all clearly marked by the theft of the £16,000, but those marks appear differently. Francis' explosive reaction at the end of Trainspotting brought him to prison, and his intention is to enact revenge upon Mark. Simon is convinced that his life would have been so different if he hadn't been betrayed - to the extent that when Mark is able to give him £4000 he doesn't know what to do with it ("what am I supposed to do with that? Buy a fucking time machine?"). Simon cannot give up his victim-hood, unwilling to admit that his life may have been exactly the same if Mark had not betrayed him ("or maybe you're angry because you'd have done exactly the same if you'd thought of it first"). Spud (for he is still Spud) clearly feels the loss of Mark's influence on his life, and if he perceives the betrayal he's not actively defined by it in the way Simon and Francis are. For Mark's part, there is guilt and attempts at reparation - money for Simon, attention for Spud as he tries to help him channel his energies away from heroin ("you're an addict. So be addicted. Just be addicted to something else.") Hijinks ensue, friendships are rekindled, and someone gets water boarded with Irn Bru. The characters examine their memories of 1996 and try to reconcile then and now as honestly as they can (with nods to Tommy and baby Dawn, and their parts in their demises). Memories are funny, are sad, are bitter, are sweet.
Like it or not, age has changed them all, and when they try to recapture the people they once were, it doesn't quite work. They can't quite run as fast or for as long. Their bodies are letting them down. The next generation are unfathomable. The city doesn't quite feel like the one they knew. The worst toilet in Scotland is no longer acceptable to them (although there still "gross out moments" with explosive vomiting from the outset).
And from this, quietly, our allegiances change and we find ourselves rooting for Spud. He changes the least but changes the most. In being the ultimate loser, he becomes the ultimate winner. He accepts himself, he accepts his life, and he finds peace in it where the others do not. And he gets the ultimate Danny Boyle trope - the offer of all the money, which he rejects it because it means nothing to him.
I'll be honest, I don't love Trainspotting. I can appreciate it, but it didn't quite hit at quite the right point in my life. But I very much enjoyed T2. It's an ode to friendship, age, reconciliation and nostalgia. And there are a lot more trains than in the first film.
Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
Francis has been in prison for 20 years, but has an 18 year old son. Has he just not added up those numbers? He seems too volatile not to have thrown the fact in his wife's face if she had an affair.
The two instances of defiance to Francis are interesting to me. He rejects his son's lifestyle, and actively taunts him to become violent, but turns to grudging respect when his son faces him down. Likewise, Francis openly mocks the idea that Spud has turned to writing, but becomes actively involved - almost happy - when Spud offers to read his stories out to him.
The women in this film are secondary characters, but they very much shape and influence the protagonists, and the plot. They support the characters where possible, but are careful not to get sucked into the chaos (such is the life of those affected by the habitual drug user). Gail removes herself (and little Fergus) from Spud's life, but remains on hand at a distance to offer support, read his manuscripts and house his belongings. Mark's mum is notable by her absence, an actual shadow which Mark and his father are acutely aware of and brought together by. She has kept Mark's room as it once was, but didn't make contact over the years. Diane is not where Mark left her, but she does offer her professional advice at a "very reasonable" hourly rate, asks after him cordially but nothing more. Veronicka constantly shapes her own future, and nudges Simon to do likewise but recognises him (and Mark. And Spud for that matter) for what they are and exits. June knows better than to attempt to argue or reason with Francis, so waits for him to burn off all his angry energy and slope off. They initially seem like the passive characters of the film, but it quickly becomes apparent that they are just not reacting to the chaos anymore, and as such keeps themselves (and those around them) sane and safe.
As always, Danny Boyle's films are instantly recognisable by their style and soundtrack. And in keeping with the theme of the film, both are current with a heavy dose of nostalgia. I particularly liked the slow, instrumental version of Perfect Day, Mark starting (and then stopping) Lust for Life, and Silk (Wolf Alice).
Jackie is a biopic, based loosely on the interview Jackie Kennedy (played by Natalie Portman) gave to Life magazine a week after her husband's death (An Epilogue which can be read here: http://time.com/4581380/jackie-movie-life-magazine/). The film focuses on the immediate aftermath of the assassination of JFK, and as such offers a confused, conflicting, often jarring portrayal of grief (and particularly, grief in the public eye).
Theatrical Poster
The story-telling switches from present day (the interview), to subject matter (the assassination and it's aftermath), to prequel (the Kennedys moving into the White House, and a documentary of Jackie inviting television cameras to survey the interior of the building). It becomes slowly obvious that in this era of television cameras, no one is quite sure of the protocol anymore and no one quite knows how to look away (it was the assassination of Kennedy that led to rolling news coverage on some American network channels). The cameras stay intrusively close, an interesting directorial choice by Pablo Larrain in his interpretation of Noah Oppenheim's script. As such, Jackie travels from Dallas and accompanies her husband's body while still wearing the infamous pink wool outfit, lashing out angrily when it is suggested that she change outfits so the cameras don't see the bloodstains ("I want them to see what they have done to Jack.") Awkwardness continues as Lyndon B Johnson is sworn in as president (with a bloodstained Jackie standing nearby), while Jackie and her children continue to live in the White House, as they pack up their lives and their administration. "I'm not the First Lady anymore", she notes, trying to balance the politics of the situation (the country must continue to be governed, business must continue as usual), with the personal (being a mother, and a widow). The clash between the personal and political continues in the planning of the funeral - Jackie wants to be able to walk beside the coffin as the wife of her husband ("I will march with Jack, alone if necessary"), while the secret service understandably fret that a huge state funeral makes for a number of high risk targets while a shooter is potentially still at large.
We see a great many sides of Jackie Kennedy - the shrewd, media savvy woman who becomes fixated on the legacy of her husband, heavily censuring and editing the conversation she has with Time's journalist ("Take that bit out - I don't smoke and never have", she demands, as she chain smokes her way through the interview); a focussed organiser preparing for a state funeral comparable to Lincoln's; the spiky and raw widow who isn't entirely sure who to listen to in a world where everyone has an opinion on how she should be and what she should be doing now; the serene debutante-looking beauty who waltzes with her husband in their Camelot; the mother who isn't sure of the right way to break the news to her children; the angry, God-hating Catholic, railing at a priest; the shocked victim who rinses the blood out of her hair and goes to bed alone. This was my confusion as I watched the film: Portman's Jackie careened so suddenly from one state to the other - occasionally in the same breath - that I couldn't quite get a hold of what I was looking at. And when I worked it out, it was so obvious - this is what grief looks like. Intimate and public, crushing and liberating, practical and theoretical, intrusive and alienating, angry, sad, violent and everything in between.
Grief and its incarnations.
There is an impressive cast, from Billy Crudup's journalist, to Peter Saarsgard's Robert Kennedy, John Hurt's priest (in his final performance before his death last week) to Greta Gerwig's Nancy Tuckerman. They all play their parts well, but are eclipsed by Natalie Portman who holds this film together. The cameras move away for one jarring, violent scene at the end where we see the assassination from Jackie's point of view. It brings the film full circle, but it's unexpected, vivid and gruesome, as the event was itself. It marks the end of Camelot.
"Don’t ever let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was Camelot.”
Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
Natalie Portman has been Oscar nominated for this role, and she and Emma Stone (La La Land) seem to be carving up the awards between them. It seems it may be a coin toss as to who gets the Oscar.
This is also a film about image and legacy. It's evident pre-assassination as the Kennedy's try to decide how to decorate the White House and explain themselves to the press. It's evident as well-meaning aides suggest that Jackie and her children leave out back doors so as not to cause distress. It's evident in the planning of the funeral - it needs to be as big as Lincoln's so Kennedy cannot be forgotten (even though, arguably, Kennedy hasn't yet done anything to warrant the pomp and circumstance of Lincoln's. He's barely half way through his first term as president). It's evident as Jackie gives a lengthy interview to Time and then rewrites the article herself anyways. Arguably, one of the least image considered moments is in the blood spattered car, as Jackie reacts in horror as she tries to hold her husband's skull together.
The iconic pink suit remains in archive. Caroline Kennedy donated the suit in 2003 (9 years after her mother's death) on the understanding that it doesn't go on display until at least 2103. No one knows what happened the hat. (Not related to the film, per se. Just an interesting fact.)
