Tag Archives: Fionn Whitehead

Movie Review ~ The Duke

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The Facts:

Synopsis: In 1961, Kempton Bunton, a 60-year-old taxi driver, steals Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London.
Stars: Jim Broadbent, Helen Mirren, Fionn Whitehead, Anna Maxwell Martin, Matthew Goode
Director: Roger Michell
Rated: R
Running Length: 96 minutes
TMMM Score: (2/10)
Review:  I know you’ve been wondering, so I’m going to break the suspense. I’m often asked what’s the worst thing about reviewing movies. Simple question, easy answer: reviewing good actors in a not-so-great film. You’d think it would be painless to review bad movies, but it’s honestly not fun because, as a true-blue movie fan, you want to like everything you see. They can’t all be winners, though, and sometimes they are downright stinkers. That’s the case of The Duke, a doubly sad affair because it is the final film from director Roger Michell, who passed away in September 2021. 

I had an inkling the film was in trouble because it had been moved around in the release schedule so many times, and for a small movie with two Oscar-winning stars in the middle of awards season, that’s an odd occurrence. While it picked up a few nominations in the UK, groups shut the movie out of any awards discussion stateside, and you can see why. It’s a total turkey, a dramedy without much moving drama or witty comedy to prove a worthwhile watch to fans of anyone involved. Also, there’s something to be said that the trailer for the film gives away absolutely everything that happens in the movie.

Dry to the point of breaking into a million pieces, the story of a London taxi driver (Jim Broadbent, Dolittle) who stole a priceless portrait from the National Gallery and became a hometown legend after he confesses feels like a slam dunk. Yet as played by Broadbent, the character is so unlikable, dotty, and disagreeable from the start that you aren’t ever convinced to be on his side, at least not long enough to stand with him against the government which was determined to prosecute him. It’s also hard to warm to his wife, played with typical stiff upper lip gusto by Helen Mirren (Woman in Gold). While Mirren’s resolve works typically to her favor, it offers her nowhere emotionally to grow, certainly not in her relationship with her husband and definitely not with their son, Fionn Whitehead (Voyagers).

Michell directed many films that had charm coming at you from all angles (hello, Notting Hill!), but The Duke is curiously absent of anything resembling persuasive charisma, and I was eternally grateful it clocked in at a decently short 96 minutes. Anything longer would have been a true prison sentence for audiences.

 

Movie Review ~ Port Authority

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Paul’s momentary encounter with Wye, a trans woman of color, leaves the 20-year-old Midwesterner transfixed by her beauty and confidence. But as the two learn more about each other, Paul’s false narratives begin to surface and the double life he lives must be reconciled.

Stars: Fionn Whitehead, Leyna Bloom, McCaul Lombardi, Jari Jones, Devon Carpenter, Eddie Plaza, Louisa Krause, Christopher Quarles, Taliek Jeqon

Director: Danielle Lessovitz

Rated: R

Running Length: 101 minutes

TMMM Score: (5/10)

Review:  So much for that whole “wokeness” thing, I guess.  Maybe that’s being a tad harsh toward the filmmakers of Port Authority but there’s something more than a little off-putting about watching a movie released in 2021 that features a vibrant LGBTQ+ cast in supporting roles of a love story between a trans woman and a “straight” white male.  When the film is seemingly about this male’s journey of discovery it’s kind of, well, lame in this current climate because it feels as if that story, that angle, has been looked at and analyzed from every conceivable vantage point already in film, on stage, and recently on television in the never-quite-got-its-due series Pose.  Who needs to see this problematic arc of redemption via self-aware reflection play out yet again, albeit with some memorable performances that almost take your mind off the main sticking point?

With Martin Scorsese serving as executive producer, this NYC-set romantic drama seems to start off on the right foot as we meet up with Paul (Fionn Whitehead, Dunkirk), newly arrived from Pennsylvania at the titular transit station expecting to be picked up by his half-sister.  Scouring the location to see if she’s as lost as he feels, he steps outside for a smoke and sees a group of twenty-somethings that give off a different kind of energy he can’t quite put his finger on.  Amongst them is Wye (Leyna Bloom), and for the briefest of moments the two lock eyes and it’s obvious we’ve witnessed that rare spark of attraction…but it’s only for moment because Paul has to get find a way to his sister’s apartment and Wye’s group is off into the charged bustle of the evening crowds.

As Paul acclimates to the city, he finds a place to stay at a grungy hostel and manages to quickly find work from the first person that showed him kindness, a tatted homophobe named Lee (McCaul Lombardi).  Lee is in the business of intimidating low-income minority families that have landlords threating to evict them, forcing them either to pay their rent or sacrifice their possessions and soon Paul is participating in these illegal actions. Not so far away, Wye is a popular star in the ballroom scene and a member of the House of McQueen, performing in nightly contests that lift up queer society and with exquisite performances.  Delirious displays of fashion, runaway walks, dancing, and severe attitude, these ballroom scenes are exclusive and not a spectator sport.

By chance, one of the ballroom participants is staying at the same hostel as Paul and one night Paul follows them to an event where he again comes in contact with Wye.  This time, they don’t let opportunity pass them by and a flirtation turns into a full-blown romance after hanging out a few times.  Now, I don’t want to say Paul is slow on the uptake but after hanging out with Wye and her “brothers” at their “house” (apartment), he apparently gets the idea that the guys might be gay but has no clue that Wye is trans. Unfortunately, this isn’t the extent of Paul’s limited exposure to life outside of his own bubble, as we’ll witness over the next days where he systematically dismantles several relationships he has – work, love, family, and all because he can’t be honest, really honest, with any of them.  At least someone like Lee wears his misogyny and bigotry loud and proud and Wye keeps it real above all else.  Anytime Paul is faced with owning up to something or providing a false excuse he tends to always opt for the lie – and this is the character we’re supposed to root for?

Writer/director Danielle Lessovitz has one half of a good movie going on here and when Port Authority is in its better half, it has a liveliness that is attractive and intoxicating, much like NYC itself.  When it strays into the uglier parts of the action, it can feel like the end of a long day walking around the city in the heat…exhausting and chafing.  I just did not care what sort of issues Paul had to work through because it was becoming more obvious he was using some of his experiences with Wye and her family to help him through that.  Not finding much love or support in his own life, he acts as a sort of parasite until he takes too much, and people get hurt. 

The other side of the coin has Whitehead and Bloom turning in tender and often terrific performances amidst all the noise, creating genuine chemistry that goes a long way in selling what Lessovitz can’t quite convey in her screenplay.  After Voyagers, this is another performance from Whitehead where he’s emotionally broken and needs the attention of another to find his way back to being whole and Bloom is just the right actress to make that fix work.  I could have used a few mores scenes with the two of them together (or even of Bloom doing her own thing) but this is firmly Paul’s story and, like it or not, you’re stuck with him for the good scenes as well as the bad.

Every time we left Wye and her family to tag along with Paul and his gross friends, all I was thinking about was how much fun the others must have been having.  If only Lessovitz had opted to tell that story instead, jettisoning Paul’s acceptance of himself by seeing what he could become through Lee’s deplorable work in favor of a deeper dive into Wye’s ballroom scene.  That would have made Port Authority more of a destination worth looking forward to.

Movie Review ~ Voyagers

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The Facts:

Synopsis: With the future of the human race at stake, a group of young men and women embark on an expedition to colonize a distant planet. But when they uncover disturbing secrets about the mission, they defy their training and begin to explore their most primitive natures.

Stars: Colin Farrell, Lily-Rose Depp, Tye Sheridan, Fionn Whitehead, Archie Madekwe, Chanté Adams, Quintessa Swindel, Madison Hu, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Viveik Kalra

Director: Neil Burger

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 108 minutes

TMMM Score: (6/10)

Review: It’s an odd thing to look over the IMDb credits for director Neil Burger and see just how many of his films have found eerie similarities in other work.  Though it technically came out first, 2006’s The Illusionist is often dwarfed in memory by Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige which also featured dueling magicians and a woman that causes trouble between them.  The surprise 2011 hit Limitless may have secured some box office clout for Bradley Cooper but it had all the calling cards of a Luc Besson film just without the Frenchman’s guts to go truly wild.  Burger was behind the start of the Divergent series which was on shaky legs even in 2014 when it suffered big time comparisons to The Hunger Games, and this was before it released two more Burger-less sequels that were so bad they didn’t bother to even make the last movie.  Remaking the French blockbuster The Intouchables as The Upside in 2017 seemed like a ghastly prospect but while Burger’s take was harmless it made so much money that who directed it didn’t seem to matter much.

That brings us to Voyagers, which won’t remind you so much of any movie you’ve seen recently but perhaps a book you may have trotted out during quarantine.  Plenty of reviews of Burger’s new sci-fi yarn will correctly label it as Lord of the Flies set in space but to just put it in that ready-made box is doing a disservice to William Golding’s 1954 morality barometer disguised as a dystopian novel as well as this Lionsgate production which is entertainment at its coldest and most obvious.  Yes, it follows an uprising that divides two factions of young adults left to fend for themselves in a solitude from which there is no hope of escape, but Burger doesn’t forget what his job is in this concoction.  His audience isn’t at home under the covers reading a browning paperback by flashlight.  They’re in a theater (if you’re into that kind of thing being fully vaccinated and/or masked up) where this film opens on Friday or, as Voyagers will be in several weeks, in their homes waiting for the fun to begin.

With the Earth’s resources being depleted at a rapid rate, scientists continue to explore the boundaries of space for signs that there could be another planet humans could survive on.  Forty years from now, that planet is found but it will take another 86 years to get there.  A crew will need to be assembled to travel to this new world and report back what they find, but due to the time it will take to get there the crew that starts out the mission won’t be the ones that actually make the discovery…their grandchildren will.  Unable to find a crew of thirty to make that commitment, the team behind the mission resort to conceiving them via IVF with, ahem, contributions from the best and brightest minds of the day.

Watching over these children as they grow (literally) is Richard (Colin Farrell, Dumbo) a scientist that winds up being the sole chaperone when the young crew finally enter space and begin their journey.  Ten years later, the group are now teens that go about their daily ship business with a detached efficiency that’s only upset after Christopher (Tye Sheridan, Mud) and Zac (Fionn Whitehead, Dunkirk) stop taking ‘the blue’, a daily dose of liquid they discover has a mood controlling and sensory dulling drug added in.  Free to finally feel for the first time, the rest of the squad follows suit including Sela (Lily-Rose Depp, Tusk) the pretty chief medical officer that’s both a confidant to Richard and his bridge to the other teens.  Sela also begins to catch the eye of the newly hormonal Christopher and Zac, both fueled by alpha male frustration that’s built up for quite some time. 

After an accident leaves them stranded, on their own, and unable to communicate with Earth, at first the niceties of protocol are followed until Zac and others (including Midsommar’s Archie Madekwe) realize that no one is going to hold them accountable for stepping out of line.  They’ve been bred to produce and that’s all so why not take as much as they want, when they want it, while they can?  This pits former friends against one another and forces all to take sides.  The wider the division gets, the larger the danger of everyone losing in the end becomes.   

It’s easy to be a bit confused by Voyagers at first glance.  The trailers make it look like a clunky C-list castoff you’d settle on when all else fails and the poster gives off the impression it’s more of an erotic trip into teen space angst.  So I was surprised that the first half of the film gets off to a rather crackling start, luring the audience in with an engaging premise and laying the groundwork for an intriguing mystery that might factor into the plot (I won’t spoil it).  Burger takes his time with things…at first.  Rather suddenly, however, the rushing begins and the time between realization and full on knowledge of the facts shortens considerably for everyone in the film.  Everyone just seems to “know” what things mean the moment they see them, or if they don’t, they understand it quickly and these leaps are more for the plot to continue to make haste than anything else.

It’s also a bit uncomfortable to watch the teens embrace their hormones with such vigor – one character goes from touching a girl’s shoulder to pretty much honking her breast in an instant.  I know none of them have experienced these sensations before, but have they never read a book or learned about etiquette?  It’s like the scientists taught the boys everything but how not to fondle girls and taught the women all about plant hydroponics yet skipped over the “no means no” conversation.  The male dominance of it all was a bit suffocating and if Burger had just given one female a bit of the nasty business to do instead of relegating it all to the guys it might have come off better.  As it is, the females become galactic wallpaper, aside from the standout Chanté Adams (Bad Hair) as a strict-rule follower that won’t be silenced by the bullies that have risen to power.  While we’re talking about the cast, Sheridan comes across like he always does…perfectly fine but terribly shallow.  If you ask me, Depp reminds me more of her model turned actress mother Vanessa Paradis than her much in the news Oscar-nominated father, and that’s not a bad thing in the least.  The standout in the cast is Whitehead who achieves a goal of creating an oily villain that you can easily root against – none of this ‘redeeming quality’ nonsense.

Despite some sag in the middle which shows some areas where the 108-minute film could be trimmed a bit, Burger gets to a fairly lively final act quite nicely.  While the effects aren’t going to win any awards, for a film of this size and with a cast of this caliber (no shade here, all are decent and acquit themselves nicely in roles that carry troublesome moments throughout) they mostly look good but I’d imagine they’d appear crisper in a theatrical setting.  For fans of sci-fi or space like myself, Voyagers is a worthy watch but know that it’s purely surface level material that is good for a distraction and little more. 

Movie Review ~ Dunkirk

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire and France are surrounded by the German army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.

Stars: Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy

Director: Christopher Nolan

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 106 minutes

TMMM Score: (9/10)

Review: Coming off of the enormous success of The Dark Knight trilogy, director Christopher Nolan stumbled a bit with his next film, Interstellar.  Though far from a complete miss, the movie was a little too smart for its own good and is one of the rare Nolan films to get less interesting with subsequent viewings.  Three years later, Nolan is back in a big way with the release of Dunkirk, a superbly structured World War II adventure that almost assures a long overdue Best Director nomination is headed his way.

Instead of giving you the same old review, I’ve compiled a list of Dunkirk Do’s and Don’ts.

Do bring earplugs.  Nolan has continued his use of IMAX technology to film select scenes and with that comes a sound design that’s positively ear splitting.  Looking around the audience in several key moments I saw numerous movie-goers with their fingers in their ears yet still enraptured with the film.  Bullets whiz by with sharp zings and fighter planes streak across the sky with a sonic boom.  Your teeth will be rattling by the time the credits roll.

Don’t be late.  I’ve had some bad luck with technical problems plaguing screenings lately and the showing of Dunkirk I attended was delayed by almost a half hour due to sound issues.  When we were told that it would be another five or ten minutes before the screening would resume, many audience members (including my guests) headed for the bathroom only to have the movie start up the moment they were out the door.  That left their movie mates to quickly explain to them in loud whispers what was happening when they returned because Nolan’s script doesn’t repeat itself or explain the setting other than short title cards as the movie opens.

Do pay attention. Dunkirk is typically Nolan-esque with multiple overlapping storylines that take place at different times.  There’s three ‘pieces’ to Nolan’s puzzle, each capturing a specific stretch of time during the evacuation of British and French soldiers from a beach in Northern France.  The Mole covers a week stretch, following several young soldiers as they desperately try to escape the sand in any way possible.  The action in The Sea unspools over a day while merely an hour is the length of time The Air covers.  All three start and end at different places/times and if you aren’t fully paying attention you’ll miss the point at which they all convene.

Don’t look for star turns.  While Nolan has cast dependable actors like Kenneth Branagh (Murder on the Orient Express), Mark Rylance (The BFG), Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins), and Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road), the real stars are the young unknowns that make up the soldiers and civilians that played a part in the withdrawal of the armies from Dunkirk.  Even singer Harry Styles turns up as a tightly wound army man and acquits himself nicely as no mere bit of stunt casting.  Only Hardy could be considered a leading player as his ace airman eventually takes center stage in his storyline.  It’s unfortunate that Nolan didn’t learn from his critics in The Dark Knight Rises that bemoaned not being able to understand Hardy behind Bane’s mask.  Once again, much of Hardy’s performance in covered by an air mask, obstructing his words from coming through clearly.  The good news is that Nolan’s script is fat-free, never too speechy or preachy. So even though you can’t always understand Hardy, you aren’t missing  ton of exposition.

Do bring some kind of stress ball and clip your nails judiciously before the movie starts.  This was one of the tensest movies I’ve seen in some time…and it begins almost as soon as the first images appear onscreen.  With Hans Zimmer’s score switching back and forth between graceful and pulse-racing, the music is almost another character.  Even when nothing of note is happening, the score is always present to remind you that no one is truly safe.

Don’t miss this one on the biggest screen possible.  Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (Her) has lensed a staggeringly beautiful film with its overwhelming wide aerial shots of fighter pilots in action and smaller moments between soldiers hoping for a miracle trapped in the hull of a grounded boat.  Another name to mention is editor Lee Smith (The Dark Knight) who has cut Nolan’s film into a lean example of cinematic efficiency.  At 106 minutes, it’s Nolan’s shortest film to date and were it any longer it would lose valuable steam.

Do read up on the real-life story that inspired Nolan’s fictionalized screenplay.  While not a huge WWII buff, even I know that the events that happened on Dunkirk aren’t always mentioned in the same breath as other acts of heroism.  Nolan affords time to take on the perils of war but tops it all off with a message of sincerity and hope that feels justly earned by the characters and audience, considering all we’ve been through together.

In summary…Do go, Don’t delay.