Somewhere

Mini Reviews

Thor (2011)

Another superhero origin story shoehorned into the summer schedule to help pave the way for Joss Whedon’s impossibly-hyped Avengers movie, Thor is a thudding disappointment as an introduction into the world of one of Marvel’s less well-known franchises.  In an overlong, stultifying prologue, Thor (Chris Hemsworth, amusingly self-serious and in search of a better film) is banished from the kingdom of Asgard by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins), leaving behind a bunch of tedious super-powered friends and a sneering, envious brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston).  This carries on for a good half hour before the film transforms into a fish-out-of-water comic romp wherein Thor’s grounded demi-god tries to find his magic hammer with the aid of bland astronomer/love interest Jane (Natalie Portman) and her motley chums (played ably by Kat Dennings and Stella Skarsgaard).  It’s this section which is by far the most successful; knowingly silly without veering too far into camp and helped enormously by Hemsworth’s easy charm.  Unfortunately, when the action returns to Asgard for a so-so confrontation between Thor and Loki it reverts to CGI borefest.  One trusts that there might have been something in this sibling rivalry had the film any sense of focus, and Loki is certainly an ambiguous villain, but so much here feels like plate-setting for Whedon’s ensemble piece that the film as a whole can’t help but disappoint.

Poetry (2011)

Yun Jiong-hie’s marvellous central performance is the principal reason for seeing this moving, if flawed, story about an older woman who joins a poetry class after her life is touched by tragedy.  Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s early on in the film, Mija’s hardships are only just beginning.  Discovering that her selfish, uncaring grandson is involved in an unspeakable crime she is forced to stump up cash to pay off the victim’s mother, money she doesn’t have and which she is being constantly harassed for by a group of uncaring fathers whose sons were also involved in the incident.  When Mija signs up for a poetry class, it’s obvious where this is headed, but her search for meaning within the situation that she has found herself in is explored sensitively and with real feeling.  It’s here that Poetry’s stately place really benefits the story, as Mija finds her own ethical system come into sharp focus even as the rest of her faculties are fading away.  A pity then that so many of the male supporting characters are so stereotypically “bad.”  Her grandson, and the men that hustle her into paying up the hush money are cruel to the point of one-dimensionality, meaning that as fully-formed as Mija feels, the same cannot be said for the world the film portrays around her.  These kind of films, where an innocent, naive woman is repeatedly punished by an uncaring society have become something of a cinematic staple, but unlike most of these films, Mija is a fully-realised, compelling character.  The poem that she eventually pulls out is heartbreaking, the culmination of that slow realisation that burns through the whole story.

Drive (2011)

Focusing on an unnamed “Driver” (Ryan Gosling), Drive is a captivating, visually stunning yet curiously empty addition to the neo-noir canon.  Gosling plays a stuntman who also makes a tidy profit as a getaway driver for local hoods.  It’s a lonely lifestyle, one made slightly more bearable by his tentative romance with neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan).  He even goes so far as to help Irene’s husband, just released from prison, in orchestrating a robbery in order to clear his debts.  Naturally, everything goes horribly wrong, and the film from thereon out falls into a close-to-unbearable spiral of blinding violence mitigated by brief moments of calm and beauty.  There’s much to admire here, even love, not least a pulsing synth soundtrack that fits in neatly to Nicholas Winding Refn’s crisp, interesting direction, that makes the most out of every single set piece.  A lot of noise has been made about Ryan Gosling’s performance in the lead role, and it’s true that it’s a hugely charismatic turn.  It does, however, at times make gestures towards caricature.  So much of the film’s publicity has focused upon Gosling’s magnetism and sex appeal that his early scenes with Mulligan are charged with an extraordinary frisson that is distracting early on, the long pauses and intense stares part of some wider picture the film is trying to sell us somehow.  This might have been balanced by a livelier actress than Mulligan in the lead female role; all lip-quivering vulnerability, she brings little to the role.  It’s this lack of an anchoring humanity that threatens to undo much of the film’s good work elsewhere, meaning that it never quite breaks free of its surface cool.  The quiet/loud pulse of the post-robbery narrative is riveting, and this is certainly one of the more distinctive films of the year (complete with a real “movie star” performance at is centre), but the whole enterprise feels more than a little chilly.

Melancholia (2011)

A somewhat hollow conflation of depression with apocalypse, albeit not entirely without merit.  In the first, least successful part of the film Kirsten Dunst’s Justine arrives late to the expensive reception for her wedding, arranged by her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband (Kiefer Sutherland).  The red star in the night sky serves as a warning signal to Justine’s imminent emotional collapse and as von Trier’s handheld camerawork captures the disintegration of the wedding reception from without, we’re made aware that this is a union that is already in a state of decay from within.  In spite of Dunst’s mostly captivating performance – there are few actresses as good at this sort of glassy-eyed despair – the film then descends into a series of vignettes in which Justine’s state of mind is hammered home repeatedly and uninterestedly.  The better, if still overly literal, second half happens an indeterminate number of weeks after the wedding reception, as Justine is ferried over to her sister’s following another breakdown.  These scenes, in which the strain of Justine’s illness on both herself and those around her, devoid of narrative yet emotionally resonant, are the film’s most memorable moments outside of the visually arresting tableaux that open it.  A shame then that Melancholia proceeds to fully embrace its apocalyptic leanings at this point, with the improbable story of a planet that has been “hiding behind the sun” and is set on a collision course with earth.  Justine welcomes annihilation with open arms, but the hitherto “stable” Claire begins to unwind.  Gainsbourg gives an unkempt sort of performance, shrill in a believable way as she clings to the last vestiges of her sanity.  The most interesting aspect of the film is how it supports and endorses Justine’s nihilism and state of mind.  Just as the planet Melancholia passes by Earth once before circling round to collide with it, so does the film lumber back round to Justine’s end-of-the-world apotheosis.  By surrounding her with characters possessing “acceptable” mental flaws (anxiety, materialism, apathy, earnestness, ruthlessness, etc.), before embracing the apparent clear sightedness of her condition, it’s as relentlessly cruel as anything von Trier has ever produced.  But it never really deals with anything more than archetypes.  We never believe in Justine and Claire as sisters (the similarly-themed Rachel Getting Married is a sore comparison point in this respect), and von Trier’s emphasis on metaphor over realism is silly rather than profound.  As a study of depression, it makes its audience think, but it never once makes them feel and that, surely, must rank it as a failure.

Final Destination 5 (2011)

The fifth in a series that has now been running for eleven years, Final Destination 5 might offer no surprises – it’s effectively a string of set pieces strung together by the exact same story from the first film – but it is grimly efficient.  A group of middling-attractive young people are heading off on a work retreat, until one kid has a vision of a suspension bridge collapsing (a genuinely thrilling, perfectly-staged bit of action there) and convinces a handful of them to disembark before it’s too late.  Death then proceeds to off the survivors in a variety of ingenious ways.  We know where this is going, and we already know that traditionally nobody survives, so the fun has to be in the getting there.  Thankfully, post-Final Destination 2, which bravely attempted to create a wider picture for proceedings, the series has stuck to its guns in offering unbearably tense set pieces set in squirm-inducing locales (laser eye clinic, acupuncturist’s, etc.).  Whilst there’s nothing here that hits the highs of the double sun bed homicide in 3, there are still pleasures to be had, although the writers might need to drop the wet plug sockets/loose bolts domino effect, which is beginning to prove repetitive.  Needless to say, the story is poor and the performances non-existent, but cheap popcorn thrills don’t come much better engineered than this.

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