Day: February 7, 2018

Darkest Hour film review ****

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Darkest Hour, 30th January 2018

I wonder when they decided? Is it what the producers demanded at the outset? Was it always there in Antony McCarten’s script? Did director Joe Wright, (who has shown in his stage work at the Young Vic with Life of Galileo and A Season in the Congo that he can do innovation), see this as the only way? Whatever the case somewhere along the line Darkest Hour went full on lachrymose. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I just wasn’t quite prepared for quite such a mawkish, tear-jerker.

Now I have confessed before that I am a sucker for a bit of Churchill and Dunkirk spirit having been roped in against my subsequent better judgement by Christopher Nolan’s extravaganza (Dunkirk film review ****) and even tolerating Brian Cox in last year’s other eponymous biopic (Churchill film review **). Most everyone of a certain age who professes some sort or attachment to “British” identity is going to have  strong emotions about Winnie, whether swivel-eyed Brexit loon, or dismissive, metropolitan elitist, and everything in between. For good or bad Churchill is intricately bound up with our idea of this country. Nation-states are lines on a map bound up with largely fictional shared histories and Churchill is integral to “our” story. Unfortunately his myth also contributes to the heady exceptionalism that has got us into the pickle we now face.

So how to bottle this powerful cocktail? Well as it turns out in a surprisingly orthodox way. First up get an everyman character actor of unparalleled class. How was Gary Oldman going to be anything other than brilliant in the role? Especially when loaded up with state of the art prosthetics, fattened up like a Christmas turkey and fed copious brandies and cigars. The bookies can’t even be arsed to take your money on the Best Actor Oscar. Whether you want your Winnie showing why oratory and rhetoric can still shape the direction of human progress, or riven with self-doubt, or consumed with hectoring bluster, or being a p*ssed baby or delivering exquisite bon-mots, then Mr Oldman is your man. Kristin Scott-Thomas is the perfect Clemmie, devoted no-nonsenseness personified, Ben Mendelsohn turns in a thoughtful portrayal of George VI (until he becomes Winnie’s bessie), Lily James is the mandatory plucky Lizzie Layton and Ronald Pickup as Chamberlain and, especially, Stephen Dillane as Halifax excel as the deluded appeasers. Cinematography, sound, music, sets, costumes, are all perfectly drilled.

And to cap it all we even get the daft scene in the tube. Why not? Who says you need absolute fidelity to the “truth” given we cannot really know what the “truth” was in the minds of these people in those fateful days. But having Winnie surprise, and then canvas the views of, a carriage full of diverse yet indomitable, “gor-blimey” Londoners, really does ratchet up the blub quotient, at least for this old fella. And he would still have been quicker walking.

I know I should be snarky here. I know I should be whingeing about the playing fast and loose with events. I know I should be pretending not to be moved or reminding you that Churchill was, in so many ways, a bit of a c*nt. But I won’t. Because with his direct story, marvellous cast and clever camera-work, (spiced up with the occasional visual treat), I reckon Joe Wright has ended up telling a cracking story. Which gets to the heart of why we need leaders who know right from wrong and why they need words to speak truth. Powerful words. For that surely is why, despite all his human faults, Churchill’s myth is grounded in a reality.

 

The Open House at the Print Room Coronet review ***

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The Open House

The Print Room Coronet, 27th January 2018

Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, August Wilson, Lorraine Hansberry, Sam Shepherd, Lillian Hellman. All succeeded at writing a Great American Play, or in some cases Plays, about dysfunctional families. In an entirely naturalistic way. It is the meat and drink of American drama.

I am no expert but I suspect there have also been multiple attempts to subvert this staple. That is what writer, Will Eno, is about here. Open House is another collaboration with Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio, which has proved fruitful to date. I was reeled in by the Bath reviews, by the concept, but most of all by Greg Hicks, who is a marvellous actor IMHO. His Richard II at the Arcola was one of my favourite turns of last year. And, all things considered, I am glad I went along, though I have to confess this is a play that delights rather more in its central idea and its structure, than in its characters.

Father, (yes it is one of those trendy no-name jobs), played by the aforesaid Mr Hicks, is a cantankerous, misanthropic, sarcastic bully. Confined to a wheelchair post a stroke he pokes, probes, belittles and demeans the family that has gathered to celebrate a wedding anniversary. Long suffering wife and Mother Teresa Banham (last seen by me in the rash Dessert at the Southwark Playhouse) tries hard to blunt his barbs and smooth things over but her heart isn’t in it anymore. Son (Ralph Davies) and Daughter (Lindsey Campbell) make nervous family small talk but are constantly shot down by their irascible Dad. Finally Uncle (Crispin Letts) seems lost in his own world, still grieving from the loss of his wife. So far so miserable. It is on occasion very funny, in that cringey, lemon-sucking way, Mr Eno has an ear for the rhythms of this painful family gathering and the cast lap it up. Tom Piper’s set along with Madeleine Girling’s costumes, Oliver Fenwick’s lighting and Andrea J Cox’s sound all contrive to create an atmosphere of utter blandness. Colour is absent.

Food is needed and Daughter volunteers to head out to the deli. And one by one, for various reasons the family leaves. And one by one the family returns, but in a different guise. Daughter is now a realtor who is set to sell the house. Son is a handyman come to fix a couple of things, Uncle a prospective buyer, Wife his partner. Father is last to leave and is mystified by what is going on, (despite prompting the shift by revealing he wanted to sell up), until he returns as the buyer’s friend and lawyer. And, with all this coming and going, colour and light seep in. The conversations more from pained recrimination to upbeat geniality, focussed on the here and now and the future, not the past. In short from pessimism to optimism. It is a gratifying watch, replete with clever touches to support the inversion, but it doesn’t seem to say much beyond the central conceit and doesn’t really interrogate the characters.

Mr Eno is apparently a one for formal innovation and that is no bad thing. But he also seems to have the comic touch and in some ways the satire on family life here may ironically have been more acute if this had been structured in a more straightforward way. Still, it intrigued and made me laugh, and Michael Boyd’s direction, is, as you would expect, entirely sympathetic to the project.