“This is the beginning,” says the voice of Niamh Algar, “of a film called The Wonder.” As Matthew Herbert’s haunting seascape of a score swoops, clangs and swirls, we see a film set – scaffolded buildings within a vast studio, much like the opening of Pedro Almodóvar’s recent short film The Human Voice. Ace cinematographer Ari Wegner’s camera slowly ventures into one of these sets to rest upon the face of Florence Pugh, as Algar’s hypnotic narration continues, telling us:…
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Elvis 2022
The Guardian feature review here.
From an opening that cheekily evokes the dropped snow globe of Citizen Kane to an Unchained Melody finale that had me crying in the chapel, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is a turned-up-to-11 treat. This blistering pop biopic combines the kinetic musical madness of Moulin Rouge! with the turbo-charged irreverence of The Great Gatsby, the Shakespearian tragedy of Romeo+Juliet (with an added touch of Falstaff and Prince Hal) and the “what-all-of-it!?” ambition of Australia. It’s a riotously audacious…
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Blonde 2022
The Guardian feature review here.
How should we assess writer-director Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s historical fiction novel about the inner life of Marilyn Monroe? Some have viewed it as a biopic and judged it accordingly, worrying about its (lack of) fidelity to the known details of Monroe’s life, and attempting to evaluate how accurately or (un)fairly it presents her strengths and weaknesses, on and off screen. Others have interpreted it as a more expressionist portrayal of the gap…
