I, Tonya

I, Tonya is a mockumentary type film based on the true story of US figure skater Tonya Harding.

In 1994 Harding was convicted for her part in the attack on her bitter rival Nancy Kerrigan. She, at the very least, attempted to cover up the attack which was carried out by her ex-husband Jeff and some hired thugs. This film however paints Harding as the victim, rather than Kerrigan who barely gets a mention, let alone any sympathy.

In its defence the film doesn’t pretend to be accurate, it is the account of those involved on Harding’s side. The film instead shows Harding (Margot Robbie) as a victim of life, fighting her way to the top of the figure skating world against the odds and despite the 'help' of her chain-smoking mother, LaVona (Allison Janney) who believes in the motivational power of abuse. 

 

She gets slapped around all the time, first by her mother and then by husband (Sebastian Stan). However Harding’s aggressively style and technical brilliance get results on the rink but although her approach is tolerated it is not loved. She feels she is constantly discriminated against by the judges because she came from the wrong side of the tracks and couldn’t afford a smart dress to skate in.

With her likely to be outshone by Kerrigan at the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Jeff and his drinking buddy Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser) make plans to intimidate her rival.

Though the men ultimately get prison time for what they did, Tonya’s life ban from skating to her was possibly worse.

It’s a decent film but in a slightly tiresome style. Margot Robbie is excellent in a role that I don’t think really suits her and perhaps because of that it is Allison Janney who is getting all the plaudits.

The Shape Of Water

Everybody is raving about Guillermo del Toro at the moment but I'm not that familiar with him. His films range generally from Spanish language horror films such as the acclaimed 'Pan’s Labyrinth' to weird action affairs such as 'Hellboy'. So the 'Shape Of Water' is already being acclaimed as a masterpiece.

Del Toro calls it a fairy tale and everyone says its based on ‘Beauty And The Beast’, which I suppose, tenuously, it could be but personally as I watched it I was thinking 'Splash' only without Daryl Hannah or maybe the 'Creature From the Black Lagoon'. 

This is probably why it's up for so many Oscars, the Academy does like a bit of cross pollination with old films and this, like ‘La La Land’,  name checks many, features a cinema and also a man obsessed with old movies.

Then again the Academy aren't going to like the plagiarism allegations surrounding the play ‘Let Me Hear You Whisper’ which is a love story between a cleaner and dolphin that is held in a laboratory.

The cleaner in this story is Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) who is a mute and has been since she was found by a river one day with odd scars on her neck. She lives above the Orpheum cinema which somehow survives on its minuscule audiences and next door to Giles (Richard Jenkins), an out of work artist who watches old TV movies all day long while having the hots for the waiter at the nearby pie emporium.

Elisa’s cleaning job is at a ‘top secret research facility’ where she works alongside Zelda (Octavia Spencer). The research facility has a new project, having come across an amphibious creature somewhere in the Amazon. Despite the top secret-ness of the facility the two cleaners stumble across it while doing the hoovering.

Elisa is immediately mitten but then she is a strange one. She hard boils eggs every morning while masturbating in the bath to her water fuelled fantasies. I'm not sure these scenes were strictly necessary but I suppose when you've got a film based on bestiality I guess you think 'what the hell'. 

Elisa then shares her eggs with the creature, plays him music and dances for him. He seems smitten too and she devises a plan to save the creature from the clutches of the film’s bad guy Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon) and his boss General Hoyt (Nick Searcy).

She talks Giles into helping her and they are assisted by the sympathetic scientist Dr Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), who wants to study the creature which he says was once revered by the Amazon tribes as a god. Neither of these men nor her colleague Zelda appear to think her romance with the creature is at all strange. 

Back at her apartment, she keeps the creature alive in her bath which she fills with salt water but things don’t take a good turn when he dines savagely on the cat and then Hoffstetler turns out to be a Russian spy. This is the cold war by the way and Russian Agents have already infiltrated the facility with the soul purpose of killing the creature. 

The creature does she to get on with Giles because as well as being able to heal bodily wounds, he can also restore hair to a bald man. Elisa is happy as well because she now gets to consummate her relationship with the creature in her bathroom, Which we find out will hold ten feet of water simply by closing the door and putting a towel under it. Well, apart from a few leaks into the cinema below.

So all that is left is to complete the plan. The plan being that once the river is at full tide, the creature can be set loose to find the ocean. What can possibly go wrong...

Well... it is indeed a good film but bloody weird too. Best Film? Probably not.

Phantom Thread

Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a celebrated dressmaker in 1950s London, dressing the rich and famous but now feeling under pressure from new fashion influences coming across the Channel.

The well established bachelor and general misery appeared to uncharacteristically on holiday when he meets Alma (Vicky Krieps), a German waitress who appears to be about thirty years his junior. He appears to falls in love with her (or what he calls in love) and she seems to reciprocate. What he sees in her and more particularly what she sees in him is never really made clear. However, smitten (of sorts) she moves in with the work-obsessed Woodcock where she becomes his muse cum live-in human mannequin/occasional companion, that is on the very rare occasions he needs one.

Once she is living with him she comes up against the strict regime run by Woodcock and his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) and has to cope with a man who, if he has any emotions at all, keeps them very well hidden. She clearly wants much more from their relationship than she is currently getting, which appears to be next to nothing, but he won’t have his carefully constructed life disrupted for anything, not even an attractive young woman half his age. It is not even suggested that they might be lovers.

So leave you think... but she doesn’t. Instead she serves up a surprise romantic meal to a man who clearly does not like surprises or romance. Domestic war breaks out with asparagus chosen as the weapon of choice.

Alma is right about one thing though. The solution to her problem was to be found in the kitchen. When she cooks him up an omelette containing poisonous mushrooms he promptly falls proper near death ill after eating it. Now she is finally happy because she can indulge herself in nursing him back to full health, openly relishing his reliance on her, and for a time they have a normal-ish relationship.

Until he reverts back to being a miserable bastard. So she does it again.... and he knowingly lets her... and she says she will do it again and again if it makes him need her. Now call me old fashioned but any relationship which relies on one party being poisoned regularly to bring out their good side is not a great basis for a long lasting future together. Perhaps they should have gone for counselling instead but what do I know?

It’s a decent film by the way with Day-Lewis in a Day-Lewis role that couldn't be a more appropriate one for him to end his career on, that is if he now retires as he has suggested he will do.

Downsizing

Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) have a pretty typical existence, living from day to day, struggling to make ends meet etc. So when a college reunion comes around and they meet some old friends who have taken advantage of new technology that has enabled them to downsize they are intrigued. Downsizing in this sense means literally being reduced to being a few inches tall and they are now living in the Leisureland community of the shrunken.

It’s win-win for everyone. Mini people take up less space on a crowded planet and consume less, conserving resources as well. It also turns out that the exchange rate in Leisureland is pretty phenomenal and so everyone lives like rich retirees whatever their age. So Paul and Audrey decide to go for it.

What is great about the film is all the thought that has gone into the downsizing process itself. From detailing the discovery of the technology to showing the actual mechanics of it being done, which involves shaving off body hair and removing teeth to have them replaced later with new smaller ones. For which they have medical teams at either end, large and small, working together. It is actually eerily convincing.

The only problem for Paul is that Audrey bottles out at the last minute and instead files for divorce. The heartless ***. If this sort of thing really was possible then I’d be looking forward to the new adventure with my other half. So it would have been nice to see where that story would have gone but Paul is cut adrift by his wife and so is the film.

The film quickly needed to find him a new partner in arms to explore this new world with but instead all he gets is a dodgy neighbour called Dusan (Christoph Waltz) and it’s not even close to being enough.

Not only does Paul's wife take herself out of the film but pretty much everyone else from the first half hour is also stranded in the ‘big’ world which is then abandoned completely spawning a totally different film for the second half.

The second half stays in the ‘little’ world, so this world becomes the norm and it is painted as just like the ‘big’ world they have left behind with the same problems and imperfections. Which may be the point but it’s like they simply forgot to write the rest of the story and there is no longer anything clever or inventive about the film.

Instead Downsizing bangs on about the poor and the environment and rapidly falls apart despite Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau), a girl from the poor community, gallant attempts to save it.

It is very disappointing that a film that had such a great premise simply doesn't deliver on it.

All the Money in the World

It's a true story of course that in 1973, 16-year-old John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer) aka Paul, grandson of the world's richest man John Paul Getty Snr was kidnapped in Rome by an organized crime gang. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of $17 million which the older Getty (Christopher Plummer) refused to pay because he really didn’t want to spend the money.

Instead it was left to Paul’s mother Gail Harris (Michelle Williams), ex-wife of John Paul Getty Jr (Andrew Buchan), to do all the battling and negotiating for her son’s release. She had gained custody of all Getty’s grandchildren when they divorced in exchange for not taking any of Getty’s precious money as alimony. However, this means that she has no money herself to pay the ransom.

Getty asks Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg), an employee of his and part time thug, to somehow get Paul released, cheaply. 

Weeks go by without anything happening, aside from a burnt body turning up in a river which they initially think it is Paul but it isn’t. It’s one of the kidnappers who was killed by his colleagues after accidentally showing his face to Paul. 

The kidnappers then lose patience and sell Paul on to a different gang who reduce the ransom demand to $4 million which causes Getty Snr to finally agrees to contribute something but only $1 million. Which is the maximum amount that he can claim as tax deductible and that is on the condition that Gail gives up custody of all the children.

 

However with the random still $3 million short, the kidnappers cut off one of Paul’s ears. Only when this turns up in the post does Getty grudgingly, under pressure from Chase, agree to pay the full amount.

 

Gail and Chase take the money to Italy and attempt an exchange for Paul, but he has legged it as soon as he was freed. Then when the captors realize that Chase has also led the police to them, they too are hunting Paul. This time to kill him.

There is a happy ending of course. Paul is saved and the elder Getty dies leaves his wealth to his kids, not that any of it is in cash. It has all been invested in paintings, sculptures and the like. Most of which are now in the Getty Museum.

Rather impressively many scenes were quickly and cleverly reshot with Plummer after Kevin Spacey was removed from the role by the director Ridley Scott but only after shooting was complete. It is a credit to Scott and to Plummer that you really cannot tell. Plummer in fact is excellent throughout.

Meanwhile Wahlberg is an odd choice for his role and in a film where everyone else is pretending it really is 1973 the rather wooden Wahlberg seems to be playing himself. 2018 style. 

It’s an informative film but one that seems to have taken liberties for a more exciting plot and is quite unbelievable in places. Decent watch though.

The Darkest Hour

The Darkest Hour here is Winston Churchill’s, with Hitler’s forces poised across the Channel ready to invade in May 1940, and his darkness lasts considerably longer than an hour.

Churchill (Gary Oldman) finds himself not only up against Hitler but also most of parliament who don’t approve of him, his vision or his motives. Many still wanted appeasement and are agitating for a deal with Germany particularly the recently deposed Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup).

Chamberlain wants fellow appeaser Lord Halifax (Stephen Dillane) to be his successor but Halifax doesn’t fancy the job and they are forced to turn to Churchill as he is the only man the other political parties would support. On the bright side it is a job that comes with a cutesy young WAAF secretary (Lily James).  

Once in power, Churchill refuses to negotiate for peace while everyone thinks he is mad for thinking that he can beat the Germans particularly with all the Allied forces currently heading for defeat at Dunkirk. They think he’s even more insane when, against all advice, he orders a suicide attack from Calais as a distraction while Dunkirk is evacuated.

Meanwhile he allows Halifax to send word via the Italians that Britain might be interested in negotiating but only because Halifax and co are planing on resigning from the government, probably triggering a vote of no confidence, if they don’t get their way.

However King George VI (Ben Mendelsohn) unexpectedly visits Churchill and backs him, mainly because he doesn’t want to be exiled. Then Churchill bizarrely asks a group of passengers on the London Underground what they think. Did that really happen? Doubt it.

When he realises that the public support him, as do his back benchers, and then when his evacuation of Dunkirk is success even Chamberlain swings behind him as he emerges from the darkness.

It’s a good film but an odd one. I can’t say I learnt anything new and it really covers far too short a period, in my opinion anyway. Gary Oldman is decent as Churchill but then have so many great actors over the years. A bit of a disappointment really.  

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The action takes place in the remote community of Ebbing, Missouri and a pretty miserable downbeat community it is. Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) has plenty of cause to be miserable. She works in an bleak gift shop but that isn't why she is miserable. Her daughter Angela was raped and murdered seven months ago. Now she lives with her depressed son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) while her husband Charlie (John Hawkes), who blames her for their daughter murder, has left her to be with Penelope (Samara Weaving), a woman half his age who works at the local zoo. To cap it all the town’s dwarf (Peter Dinklage) has a crush on her.

Frustrated with the police, who have made no progress on the case, Mildred rents three unused billboards on the edge of town and puts up billboards which read ‘Raped While Dying’, ‘And Still No Arrests?’, and ‘How Come, Chief Willoughby?’. 

This has the desired effect, puts the wind up the police and attracts the attention of the local media. Yes while police chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) manages to retain his cool, his inept and racist deputy Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) takes offence.

He takes his ire out on Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones), the businessman who rented Mildred the billboards, and arrests her friend Denise (Amanda Warren) on a trumped up charge.

The billboards also upset the townspeople and with Willoughby openly suffering from terminal cancer they too are less than happy with Mildred.

  

She is hauled before the police herself when she strikes out in frustration at her dentist. Then after interviewing her, Willoughby, another one who has a partner almost half his age, goes for a final romantic fling with his wife Anne (Abbie Cornish) and then kills himself before his cancer does the job. Although not before first paying for another month’s rental on the billboards. 

When the billboards are destroyed by arson, Mildred retaliates by chucking Molotov cocktails at the police station and from an impressive distance. Unexpectedly Dixon is inside, rethinking his attitude, career and life after being left a letter by Willoughby and fired by Willoughby's replacement. He ends up sharing a hospital room with Red who is recovering from the injuries Dixon inflicted on him.

Suddenly becoming the nice guy Dixon reckons he has a lead on who killed Angela but when it it turns out the man has an alibi, Mildred and Dixon together conclude that the man must be guilty of some other attack and set together to kill him anyway...

It is a wonderfully complex film in which there is an awful lot going on. It is full of action, (black) comedy, poignancy and rage (plenty of rage). It’s very Coen-ish and incidentally stars Coen favourite McDormand, who brilliantly plays a woman weather beaten and worn down by life. It is her best performance since Fargo.

Probably the film of the year, already.