Joker - Folie à Deux

Great Fleckspectations

Joker - Folie à Deux
Directed by Todd Phillips
Canada USA 2024
DC/Warner Brothers
UK Cinema Release Print.

Well this was an unexpected, surprisingly brilliant movie. I admit I was going in with pretty low expectations but Joker - Folie à Deux, the sequel to the same director’s Joker (reviewed here) is a pretty marvellous film and far superior to the flawed and derivative first movie. Now, that being said, I had one big problem with this movie and it’s the exact same one as I had with the prior film. But also having said that, it really is the only problem I have with this one because, it’s one of those rare, damn near perfect concoctions that Hollywood manages to pitch up every now and again.

So that particular problem... and it is admittedly a huge one... is this: What the heck does this character and movie have to do with the DC character The Joker? Answer, like the first one, almost absolutely nothing. The Joker personae is very different, shares no similarity to the character’s background in the comics and doesn’t even have the tenuous connection to Bruce Wayne that the first film has (indeed, the Wayne family don’t even appear in this one except as a blink and you’ll miss it presence on a billboard). And frankly, name checking Harley Quinn and Harvey Dent as main characters and then having a set prop pushing the idea of Arkham Asylum... that does not a Joker movie make. So to say this is in the same universe as the characters which it exploits to get people into cinemas is a little cynical and misleading, at best, I would say. To their credit, DC are labelling this as an Elseworlds movie (in line with their very bold comic book strand of the same name) but they could have easily have called these two movies something else entirely and not had the links to the comic book universe clumsily used as a marketing proposition at all.

All that being said... I don’t really care because this film is an absolutely magical time at the cinema and is easily, at this point in the year, one of 2024s best movies. Not the best, certainly but, it’s on that list.

This one, once again, top lines Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck (aka The Joker) and he’s joined in this one by Lady Gaga as Lee Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn) who also, it has to be said, has very tenuous links to her comic book alter ego. They are also joined by such luminaries as Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener and, briefly, Steve Coogan too. And if you’re expecting more of the same of the first film I’m delighted to be able to say, you may be disappointed. I’m not the biggest fan of Phoenix but I’ve warmed to him in roles like this the last few years and his tender portrait of Arthur once again makes this a memorable movie. And, honestly, Lady Gaga is right there matching him with an equally solid performance all the way. Their respective characters’ love holds the movie together and, alas, I can’t comment on that too much for fear of spoilers but, it’s an interesting dynamic, for sure.

And, as I said, it’s not like the first movie... especially in terms of story. This just covers Arthur’s lead in to and eventual appearance at his trial for five of the six murders he committed in the last movie. But this is also an example of what has come to be known, over the last decade or so, as a Jukebox Musical. There are loads of songs, some of which even I could sing along too (mostly from the 1960s) and some of these transpire in what are the naturalistic settings of the movie and, others of them take place inside Arthur Fleck’s head, where the colours are wild and the glamour comes to the fore. And it’s good stuff. I loved Lady Gaga’s rendition of If They Could See Me Now from Sweet Charity (the Gwen Verdon stage show flagged, as opposed to the Shirley MacLaine movie version of Fosse’s remake of Fellini’s Nights Of Cabiria, both of which I talk about here) and, well, all I will say is, even if it’s just a clip from The Bandwagon, seeing Oscar Levant on the big screen again is awesome. That’s certainly entertainment, if you catch my drift.

Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score once again keeps the visual images and the musical interludes effectively threaded together and the cinematography is all levels of gorgeous, especially when utilising the MGMified colours of the 1950s and 60s musical palette. Plus, the brand new Joker themed Looney Toons short which starts off the movie is a wonderful piece of work too, it has to be said. So, yeah, that’s me pretty much done on Joker - Folie à Deux other than to say, I was genuinely impressed and riveted by the whole film as it slowly played out and I can’t wait to grab this one on Blu Ray when it gets a release. Definitely see this one on a big screen if you can.

Calvary

I Sin On The Craic

Calvary
Ireland/UK 2014
Directed by John Michael McDonagh
Entertainment One Blu Ray Zone B

I’m not that familiar with the work of actor Brendan Gleeson, it has to be said but, after seeing him turn in a phenomenal performance in Hampstead last year (reviewed by me here), I thought it was high time I caught up with at least one other of his films and I knew the word of mouth on Twitter for Calvary when it was released a few years ago was pretty good.

And it is, to be fair, a pretty amazing film and although the title is a bit of a spoiler, perhaps, if you know what it actually means (I don’t remember it being explained in the film itself), it’s a film which maybe gives you a little bit of hope as to what the outcome, as inevitable as it seems, is going to be as the central character weaves a spell of magic and righteousness as he goes about his daily business.

So here we have Brendan Gleeson playing Father James, a man with a grown up daughter from a wife who has since died with James embracing religion and joining the priesthood as a result of this incident. The film starts with him in his confessional box and a man, known to James but whose identity is withheld from the audience until the final reveal at the denouement of the movie, explains to him how he was raped and regularly molested as a child by a catholic priest. The priest in question is long dead but the man says words to the effect that nobody takes any notice when a bad priest is killed. However, if a good priest is murdered then that’s something people will have to take notice of so he tells Father James that he will meet him in one week’s time on the beach, where he will kill him. He is giving him one week to put his house in order and prepare for death.

Yup. That’s the plot set up and the film follows the duties and journeys among a whole village full of, often quite hard to stomach, people as the week progresses, each day heralded on screen in white lettering as it begins. And, of course, as the week unfolds before your eyes and Father James’ daughter comes to stay with him, not knowing of the impending peril he may be in, you try to figure out just which of the people Father James visits in his duties to humanity is the person who has threatened to end his life at the end of seven days. It’s hard to tell, actually, because Gleeson’s performance is subtle and he’s not giving anything away that you would catch on the first viewing and the way the director deliberately distracts you in the case of one person is... maybe detectable but it’s easily forgotten as the telling of the tale unfolds and so, I have to say, I was as surprised by the final reveal in the movie as anyone.

The casting is great here too. Gleeson is unbelievably brilliant and he’s ably backed up by people like Chris O’Dowd as the local butcher, M. Emmet Walsh as a very old writer (it took a few scenes for me to recognise this star of Blade Runner, reviewed here, in this), Dylan Moran in a stereotypical role (which I almost wish he’d stop accepting so he can go off and do a wider variety of parts) and a whole host of other, brilliant little character actors which includes an outstanding performance from Kelly Reilly as Father James’ daughter. Actually, she’s got red hair in this one and it’s the first time I’ve noticed how uncannily like a young, 1960s incarnation of Cilla Black she is (from her Work Is A Four Letter Word period).

Of course, the real star here, in a way, is the cinematography and the compositions in which the director renders his film. It’s absolutely beautiful to look at, executed with a very languid pacing which allows you to appreciate the bright colours and the dark contrasts of the surrounding landscape. This includes some unusual introductions into shots too. Like, for instance, the moment where Father James’ daughter finds him fishing. Instead of starting the sequence with an establishing shot filling the frame, we instead take a voyage with Kelly Reilly’s bare feet as she walks through the earth to him (without us even knowing whose feet we are following) before the edit takes us to the  shot that most director’s would have started the scene off with... it’s nice stuff.

Actually, it wasn’t until a scene where Gleeson is talking and praying with a French woman in church that I began to notice just what kind of modus operandi McDonagh was employing throughout the picture. The lady in question has just survived a horrendous car accident which killed her husband and as the two of them are talking, seated side by side in the very dark church, all you can see are the two upright panels of stained glass windows lit up behind them and the light on the front of their faces, in close up contrast to those windows. When we go to a more close up of Gleeson, it becomes evident, for example, that the heads and shoulders of those characters are only lit at the boundaries of the frame of those windows and carry the shape on down the screen... so there is hardly any light on them where the darkness on the left and right of those framed rectangles go.

Once I’d spotted what he was doing here, I soon discovered that the director starts using both the natural landscape and the interior environments as things which can be filled in or be in contrast to the shapes made by the way their surroundings are lit. People filling in for the parts of the environment that you can’t see, in other words. Such as that same woman’s head standing in for an invisible central strut to a big set of windows at an airport. The whole movie, once I’d noticed what was going on, seemed to me to be built out of vertical lines, upright blocks, various framing devices and, often, half lit faces. And, of course, it’s all the richer for it.

The film has a much more naturalistic acting style to contrast against the quite overtly rigid and controlling compositions which imprison the characters in the narrative space and I’ve already talked about what a grand job all the performers in the film do. What this approach to the acting also does is to usher in the final ‘showdown’ between the priest and one of his ‘customers’ in the parish almost by stealth. There are logical expectations as to where the film is going and the ‘week in the life’ approach to the central character and his attitude to life and others kind of lulls you into a certain attitude adjustment as to where the film is headed before it gets there. I’m not saying the end of the film is a total surprise but I really don’t want to discuss the scene which everything is leading up to here because it’s a huge spoiler.

However, I will ask you to take note of what Father James tells his daughter is the ‘most over-rated virtue’ towards the end of the film and to maybe look at the final few shots of the movie, after the ‘showdown’ has occurred and maybe find some kind of final word on where the characters are heading just before the credits roll. That being said, there is a certain amount of ambiguity in the final scene too but, as I said, I think the discussion about virtue may be a way into a sense of closure for the film (or it was for me, at any rate). As the credits play out, stick around if you want to see a few location shots scattered here and there which may, or may not, add comment to the consequences of the events of the movie as it plays out.

And that’s me on Calvary. A mind blowing film which I would absolutely recommend to pretty much anyone who asks me about it. If you have a love of cinema and the places and mindsets where it can transport you and, especially in this case, the way in which it can inspire thought about the tunnel vision of different people to deal with specific problems and the consequences they have for everybody else, then you really should add this one to your list. And that’s all I’m saying about it here.

Paddington 2

Bear Behind Bars

Paddington 2
UK/France/USA 2017
Directed by Paul King
Studio Canal Blu Ray Zone B

Late to the party again, as I was with the first installment in this extraordinarily entertaining and well made film series based on the much loved English character created by the, now sadly deceased, Michael Bond. Paddington 2 continues the adventures of everyone’s favourite marmalade sandwich eating bear from Darkest Peru as he continues to live with the Brown family and enrich the lives of his London community.

The film starts with a bit more of Paddington’s back story, depicting his first meeting with his ‘Aunt Lucy’. Now, I hate to say the film is obvious as to where it’s going but... well it’s not hard to work out what the last scene in this movie is going to be after seeing this pre-credit sequence. However... that didn’t stop me crying my eyes out at the ending due to the soppy nature of said denouement and, frankly, by the time you take the journey to the end of the film, no other ending would have done... so no problems there then.

Now, I probably didn’t enjoy Paddington 2 quite as much as the first one (which I reviewed here) but it’s certainly almost as entertaining and it has a mighty fast pace to it. All the usual slapstick applies and director Paul King, who also returns for this sequel, seems to have a good eye for creating great compositions with the obvious CGI elements added into the frames. Much of the film is predictable but it also homages the Britishness of the character... such as a bucket and ladder sequence when Paddington decides to become a window cleaner.

Why is he a window cleaner?

Well, I’m glad you asked. He needs to find a present for his Aunt Lucy’s 100th birthday to send to Darkest Peru and he finds the perfect thing in his local antique shop... a wonderful and, as it turns out, very rare pop-up book of London. So rare that there’s no way Paddington can afford it... even with the 50 pence piece Mrs. Bird (once again played by Julie Walters) found in his ear earlier in the movie. So to raise the money, after a false start where he completely wrecks his chances at being a barber’s assistant, he embarks on a job doing everybody’s windows and... he does it pretty well too. Unfortunately, he also accidentally alerts this film’s ‘bad guy' Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant), an out of work actor forced to do dog food commercials, to the whereabouts of the pop-up book which, unbeknownst to most people apart from the villain of the piece, contains clues scattered around various London landmarks, leading to a famous fortune in trinkets gifted to a deceased trapeze artist.

So, the evening before Paddington finally has enough money for the book, he notices Buchanan in the act of thieving said tome from the store and gives chase in a nicely put together pursuit sequence where he rides the neighbourhood dog he has befriended. Alas, the police don’t see Buchanan exiting, pursued by a bear... they just see our furry hero so, when Buchanan gives Paddington the slip, it’s our favourite bear himself who finds himself thrown into prison. A really nice, bizarrely idealised version of prison, to be honest but, you know... ‘tis a family film.

More adventures continue as the Browns attempt to prove Paddington’s innocence while the bear of the moment and his new prison friends, played by such notable guest stars as Noah Taylor and Brendan Gleeson (as the prison cook, Knuckles McGinty) have a daring escape plan to get Paddington back on the outside to clear his name.

And, yeah, it’s a great little movie.

It’s also filled with some very inventive and lovely set pieces on the visuals...

Such as a wonderful sequence when Paddington is first shown the pop-up book and his imagination projects himself and Aunt Lucy through the cardboard cutout pages on an exploration of London. It’s a beautiful scene and it’s also, presumably deliberately, reminiscent of the old and much loved Paddington TV show of the 1970s where everyone else except Paddington was represented by cardboard cut outs.

And, after accidentally turning all the prison uniforms pink in a ‘washing incident’, many of the jail sequences seem directly inspired by the relevant sequences in The Grand Budapest Hotel (reviewed by me here), if I’m not very much mistaken and even Dario Marinielli’s, pretty grooving score for the movie seems to follow suit for some of those ‘Desplat moments’ on the soundtrack.

The performances are lovely too, with a whole load of cameos from famous actors such as Peter Capaldi, Tom Conti, Ben Miller and, seriously, so many I can’t possibly mention them all here. And, of course, along with Q branch’s very own Ben Whishaw reprising voice duties for Paddington, we have Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins back as Mr and Mrs Brown.

Both are a delight, of course and Hawkins tells the story of flying to England straight after her Oscar nominated turn in The Shape Of Water (reviewed here), only to find herself shooting more underwater scenes for Paddington 2. Now that I know the content of that underwater sequence, I have to say it’s one of those moments where Hawkin’s and a CG character absolutely pull off one of the most potentially devastating scenes you could think of in a family film. You know what you’re watching can’t possibly do what you think it’s going to do but both Sally and the CGI Paddington wordlessly convey a whole world of emotion in this part. Seriously, it really wipes me out now just thinking about it.

Of course, it’s a family film so all comes right in the end and, you know, while it has the much expected finish with a set up from the pre-credits sequence, stick around for the end credits look at Paddington’s scrapbook for a chance to see what happens to all the other characters in the film (plus an extra musical song and dance number from Hugh Grant).

And that’s all I’m saying about this one again because I’m getting all teary eyed just thinking about it, to be honest. Not as good as the first film in the franchise but a strong movie which in no way, shape or form lets down the memory of its predecessor. Paddington 2 gets two paws up from me!

Hampstead

Shack To The Future

Hampstead
2017 UK Directed by Joel Hopkins  
UK cinema release print.

Hampstead is a film I came to quite by accident. By that I mean that I didn’t hear anything about this production until I caught a trailer for it in the cinema a couple of weeks before it was released. I’ve always liked Diane Keaton since her days pairing up with Woody Allen (I used to adore her singing Seems Like Old Times in Annie Hall) and the movie looked like it was something more interesting than a lot of the turbulent, explosive movies on offer at my local cinema at the moment.

The end credits mention that the film is ‘inspired’ by the real life ‘ Hampstead Hermit’ Harry Hallowes although, to be fair, I suspect there’s an awful lot of embellishment in this one which, you know, is usually the case with ‘true stories’ or biopics. In fact, the character’s name has been changed in this to Donald, as played by Brendan Gleeson, while Diane Keaton’s completely fictitious character is called Emily. So I don’t think it’s a far stretch to say that there’s not a heck of a lot of basis for this in the real life story which inspired it but... this is art so, you know, there doesn’t have to be.

This is probably going to be a fairly short review, however, because there’s not too much to be very critical about. It’s not being too ambitious as to where it’s reaching and it ends up as a kind of charming, romantic British comedy with, maybe, a little more edge than some others, at least in terms of the little truths which cut at the heart of the two main characters, Emily and Donald. I suspect there’s a lot that the actors here brought to the table in this one too because, technically, the script seems to have not much to say in terms of the history of the character’s lives. It’s all pretty much done in shorthand with a few scenes thrown in to establish details... with Donald coming off as the more mysterious of the two, although there are some hints about his past from which you can deduce all the necessary emotional baggage the character is carrying around with him.

For instance, we know Emily is a widow who has lost her husband about a year before this story starts and that she has found out he was having an affair with a younger woman. When she shouts at him and throws her shoe at his grave, complaining about all the debt and red tape paperwork he has left her with, you get a pretty good idea at the turmoil and drifting quality of her character.

But even though these two characters, Emily and Donald, have quick swipes at their personal histories, the two actors involved bring them totally to life and they become real people before your eyes. You get a real sense of their history just from the way these two veteran performers are absolutely nailing the attitudes and body language of the words they have made flesh.

The story itself is about a man called Donald who has been living in a shack in the forest which he built for himself seventeen years prior and who is being threatened with eviction. He lives the life of a reclusive tramp who catches and cooks his own meals, bathes in the river and generally lives a carefree life where he doesn’t want that much contact with people. However, Emily tries her best, almost by stealth, to help him and sets in motion a chain of events which sees Donald in court defending his right to stay put... instead of just getting angry at people about it

Keaton is an absolute powerhouse in this and I always wonder why I don’t see more of her in films these days. She plays a caring and compassionate woman caught up in a web of ‘rich Hampstead dwellers’ who she seems to have nothing in common with before she meets and ultimately falls in love with Donald. She is an absolute master of her craft and I noticed in this that, although the scripting is pretty good it’s, as I implied before, what’s not in the script where she really comes into her own. It’s almost as if you’re watching a silent movie and I’m convinced if this was playing without dialogue in a cinema, you’d still be able to make complete sense of the story even without any inter-titles because Keaton uses her face a lot here... twisting it into quizzical expressions and stealing deductive half glances at the characters she interacts with in such a way that no talking is required (although, obviously, she’s pretty good at that too).

Brendan Gleeson, mind you, is similarly a force to be reckoned with here in his portrayal of the gruff, bear of a man that is Donald. I’m not that familiar with his work (although a quick scan of his career on the IMDB shows that I have actually seen a few other movies with him in them) but I know I want to see more of what this guy can do because he’s brilliant here... matching Keaton’s acting style perfectly and bringing his talent to the table so that, when they’re together, the two elevate each other’s performance as they sparkle against each other (I recently picked up a very cheap Blu Ray of Calvary with Gleeson in it so I may give that one a go fairly soon).

Keaton and Gleeson are also aided by a pretty sound cast too... not least of which is Mike Leigh regular Lesley Manville as, almost, a kind of villainess of the piece, in some ways... but she manages to bring a certain lack of black and white to the character which you maybe wouldn’t expect, given her story function in the picture. And we also have some pretty sound cameos from people like Simon Callow as the judge, James Norton as Emily’s son and a very intense Phil Davis as a key witness in the trial at the end. Actually, at the time of writing this review, the IMDB seems to be totally unaware of Phil Davis’ presence in the movie but, you know, trust me... it’s him.

The film is not particularly flashy or overt in its mise en scène, to be fair... it does however capture some of the nicer looking parts of Hampstead and the surrounding areas very crisply so the film is certainly easy on the eye and, almost a rarity these days, the editing doesn’t get in the way of the flow of the movie. With a mild and pleasantly impressionistic score by Stephen Warbeck, the film weaves its spell and gives you what I would call, a nice agreable night out at the cinema. Something which is not to be sneezed at when giant transforming robots are vying for your attention and want to ruin your eardrums with their over-enthusiastic sound design.

All in all, Hampstead is a nice little movie and something I would wholeheartedly recommend. It does get a bit syrupy, for sure... but there’s plenty of grit and challenging viewpoints thrown into the mix too so... you know... maybe give this one some of your time.