Parasite (2019)

The Kim family juggle poverty with dreams of improvement in the brilliant Parasite

Director: Bong Joon-Ho

Cast: Song Kang-Ho (Kim Ki-taek), Choi Woo-shik (Kim Ki-woo), Park So-dam (Kim Ki-jeong), Jang Hye-jin (Kim Chung-sook), Lee Sun-kyun (Park Dong-ik), Cho Yeo-jeung (Park Yeon-gyo), Jung Ji-so (Park Da-hye), Jung Hyeon-jun (Park Da-song), Lee Jung-eun (Gook Moon-gwang), Park Geun-rok (Yoon), Park Seo-joon (Min-hyuk)

I’m writing this in the glorious after-glow of Parasite’s shock win for Best Picture, finally breaking (after 92 years!) the taboo on foreign language films lifting the Big One at the Hollywood’s annual love in. So let’s just say: not only is it a delight to see Hollywood breaking “the 1-inch barrier of subtitles” (to quote Bong from his Best Director at the Golden Globes), but also it’s a thrill to see the Oscar go to something that can make a legitimate claim to being the Best Picture of the Year – not to mention a film that speaks to the modern world in a way very few nominees have done since Get Out.

Bong’s superb picture has found such universal appeal perhaps because it so completely understands questions of class and wealth in our modern world. Set in an unnamed South Korean city, we are introduced to both the extreme poor and the extreme rich. At the bottom end of the scale – living in a half-basement apartment – are the Kim family. At the top – almost literally, living in a sprawling, modernist apartment bathed in sun with a large private garden at the top of a hill – are the Park family. When son Kim Ki-woo (Choi Woo-Shik) lands a job at the Parks’ teaching English to their daughter, he quickly begins to work with sister Ki-jeong (Park So-dam) to manipulate Park Yeon-gyo (Cho Yeo-jeung) to hire each member of the family in turn in a job in the household. But from there, the best laid plans spiral firmly out of control.

The less you know about the structure and events of Parasite going into it, the more you will gain from the film. What Bong has created here is a superb medley of genres, developing from a black-comedy-heist-caper into thriller territory, with a splash of horror and lashings of intelligently subtle social commentary. This is a film for the modern age, addressing questions of class, cultural resentment, societal divisions and the damaging impact of the super-rich and super-poor living side-by-side in ways that are profoundly insightful and fundamentally universal. 

Who are the parasites in Parasite? You could argue its society itself. At first it seems obvious on the surface that the Kims – living half beneath the surface of the city itself, inveigling their way into homes and roles, ruthless in acquiring their aims – fit the bill. But what about the Parks? So sheltered by money (“She can afford to be nice” says Kim dismissively of Mrs Park) they seem barely able to organise their own lives without the aid of an army of employees, placing no real value on them as people, only as extensions of their own house.

It’s all part of Bong’s skilful shift of perceptions throughout the film: the Kims are in some ways sympathetic (for the extreme poverty and desperation) but also they have no concern about hurting other people or manipulating them to get what they want. At the same time, we invest in seeing the well laid plans come to fruition, despite the impact it has on other people affected by their schemes. But as the film progresses, the innate selfishness and thoughtlessness of the Parks, their assumptions that their problems are of more concern than other people’s, that the world should revolve around them, makes them less sympathetic and the Kims more rounded and human.

Bong’s film brilliantly outlines this class war, every frame enforcing the insane split between such completely different worlds all rammed into the same city. The Parks’ apartment is a triumph of modernist design, the Kims’ flat a lightless dive with a regular tramp who pisses just outside their window. The Kims scurry to distant corners of the apartment to gain access to roving free wifi and stretch limited food supplies and their few pennies to the absolute limit. The family takes menial jobs to make ends meet, including folding a never ending pile of pizza boxes (boxes that seem to grow to dominate their flat).

At one point the camera follows the progress of the Kims as they leave the Park house and scamper, in an almost surreal series of long shots, down a never-ending parade of steps and streets, literally descending further down-and-down into the gutters of the city. It’s superb moments like this in Bong’s intricately designed film that constantly show us the divides between these people, the Parks living practically on Olympus with the Kims in Tartarus. These are problems that infect every society in the world, and the difficulty of making both rich and poor actually understand each other and find common ground to relate on are the problems we all see around us every day.

That’s even leaving aside the triumphs of Bong’s directing confidence, his mastery of tone and genre. The first half of the film is very funny – with Bong even leaning on this by having his characters drop dialogue that subtly refers to the ease with which the Kims’ plans come together – and has a delightful heist movie vibe. But the bubbling barriers between class hint at the tensions and danger that we feel lie in wait in the film, and threaten to break out. Korea is a volcano with the Kims and Parks sitting on the top, but it’s a volcano that the whole world can recognise. As Bong makes the film darker, leaner and even more menacing with hints of tragedy, it feels like the world correcting itself.

The acting is superb across the board with Song Kang-Ho hilarious and then deeply affecting as Mr Kim, a man slowly pushed beyond what he can bear. Cho Yeo-jeung is terrifically endearing and frustratingly thoughtless as the naïve Mrs Park. Park So-dam is brilliant as a super-smart Ki-jeong Kim, brilliantly manipulating left-right-and-centre. There is not a false note in the cast, the entire ensemble perfectly combining to create the class-conscious world of the film. To say too much more would be spoil it!

Bong Joon-ho’s film is Western break-through but really it’s a universal condemnation of the dangerous influence of class. And with Bong’s mastery of cinema – this is such a well directed film, both in terms of tone and every single shot contributing brilliantly to the whole – this has produced a film that feels like a very modern, prescient and profound masterpiece, a film that speaks to and almost defines the problems of the modern world. While at the same time being immensely entertaining and unpreaching. Thank goodness that 1 inch barrier came tumbling down.

Colette (2018)

Keira Knightley tries her best in this light but safe biography Colette

Director: Wash Westmoreland

Cast: Keira Knightley (Gabrielle Colette), Dominic West (Henry Gauthier-Villars/Willy), Eleanor Tomlinson (Georgie Raoul-Duval), Aiysha Hart (Polaire), Fiona Shaw (Sido), Denise Gough (Missy), Robert Pugh (Jules), Rebecca Root (Rachilde), Julian Wadham (Ollendorff)

In the era of #metoo what could make for a more relevant storyline today than this biography of Gabrielle Colette (Kiera Knightley), a young woman who marries literary playboy Henry Gauthier-Villars (Dominic West) aka Willy. Henry brings her back to Paris, and reveals the secrets of his success – he is the front man for a host of ghostwriters, producing articles and even novels for the public. Colette writes a novel for the “factory”, based on her own childhood – Claudine àl’école – which Willy initially rejects but later publishes under his own name (after he has suggested revisions to improve its plot and general raunchiness). The book is a smash – and Willy is a sensation – as are the sequels, but the growing frustration Colette feels at her lack of recognition, combined with the growing sense of freedom she finds in their open marriage, starts to lead her to question what she wants from her own life.

Colette is a decent, rather middle-of-the-road and middlebrow literary biography, that dabbles with controversy and racy content, but essentially follows a fairly traditional structure of our hero finding her own voice. The most interesting thing about it, despite the obvious surface message of the woman exploited by a man, is to suggest that while Willy certainly profited from Colette’s work, he was also the primary driver in her development as a writer and that the two of them maintained a stable working partnership for years until events led to their collapse. 

Much has been made in particular of a scene where Willy locks Colette into a room to write – and there isn’t a single review that hasn’t mentioned it – but, in the context, it’s Colette who has failed to focus on the writing (which the pair have already been paid for), or wdo the work she has committed to do, much to Willy’s disappointment when he returns to the country home that the advance for the book has paid for. While her objections are at first furious she swiftly settles into writing in the room (and there is no suggestion that this event is any more than a single one-off, a shock tactic from Willy to get Colette creating again). This isn’t to say the film is suggesting that Colette shouldn’t have received all the credit and freedom from the start, but it does raise more interesting questions: yes Willy was taking advantage of her, but yes he also pushed her to achieve things she would never have done herself.

It’s all part of Dominic West’s superb performance as Willy, skilfully balancing a man who (until the final act of the film) is neither flat-out villain or misunderstood hero, but a man of shades of grey: flawed, selfish, lazy, thoughtless but also encouraging of his wife’s exploration of her own sexuality and creativity, supportive and capable of acts of charming sweetness and kindness. Westmoreland makes clear that for much of the marriage their relationship was functional and a good match, for all it was founded on the false sands of Colette being denied the public credit for her own work. Sure he spunks their money up the wall continuously, but he also helps her become an artist. 

For all the film’s workmanlike structure and obvious telling, this does make for a far more interesting version of the story than the straight “ogre-victim” story you might expect, even if it does start to get a bit bogged down in sexual shenanigans. The mostly focus around bisexual American socialite Georgie (Eleanor Tomlinson with a soapy Southern accent), who becomes the lover of both Colette and Willy. It’s part of the sense of Colette questing for an identity, but the idea of what this is and what the journey is never quite solidifies into something really incoherent. Though I suppose you could argue the journey is Colette realising she doesn’t need Willy, and that shorn of him she can survive far better on her own than he can without her.

Part of this is connected to Keira Knightley’s solid, but not quite deep enough, performance as Colette. As is often the way with her best work, Knightley works her socks off here and is clearly completely committed to the role and the film – but she just isn’t quite capable of elevating the depths of her skill to meet the full demands of the film. She doesn’t disgrace herself at all, but it’s a performance that never had enough fire and life to really become compelling.

It means you don’t quite get the powerful feminist message the film is aiming for. Knightley’s performance isn’t quite strong enough to counter-balance West, and the film’s failure to put together a compelling story line around what Colette actually wants – the film eventually settles for a rather ill-thought out phrase about wanting to lead her own life – means it peters out without much impact. There is a powerful story in here around women being denied recognition for their own talents and skills, but it never quite coalesces as it should.

The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)

Dev Patel makes a charming lead in this Dickens adaptation that finds the comedy but misses the heart

Dir: Armando Iannucci

Cast: Dev Patel (David Copperfield), Tilda Swinton (Betsey Trotwood), Hugh Laurie (Mr Dick), Peter Capaldi (Mr Micawber), Ben Whishaw (Uriah Heep), Paul Whitehouse (Mr Peggotty), Aneurin Barnard (James Steerforth), Daisy May Cooper (Peggotty), Morfydd Clark (Dora Spenlow/Clara Copperfield), Benedict Wong (Mr Wickfield), Darren Boyd (Mr Murdstone), Gwendoline Christie (Jane Murdstone), Anthony Welsh (Ham Peggotty), Rosalind Eleazar (Agnes Wickfield), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Mrs Steerforth), Anna Maxwell Martin (Mrs Strong)

If Charles Dickens ever had a favourite child, it was probably David Copperfield. His novel – heavily inspired by events in his own life and upbringing – is an epic masterpiece, part coming-of-age story, part heart-warming family saga, part social satire. It’s quite a challenge to boil down its hundreds and hundreds of pages – and multiple plot points and characters – into less than two hours, but that’s the task Armando Iannucci takes on here. Does it work?

Well, to be honest, not quite. There is a lot to admire here, I’ll say that straightaway. And maybe I’m hard on it as I’ve read (or listened to) the novel at least three times. But for me this version drains out the heart of the novel. It zeroes in on the comedy – and there are several scenes and characters that are inarguably funny – but in doing so it removes or peels away anything bittersweet or with even a hint of sadness. It’s funny, but also a strangely empty and unengaging version of the story that it’s hard to get invested in and finally seems to drag.

Iannucci uses a terrific framing device, inspired by Dickens’ own public readings of his work. The film opens with Copperfield (a wonderfully jovial and engaging Dev Patel) publically introducing his novel to a theatre full of people which, with a flourish, disappears as he walks into the scenery and into his own past. Iannucci sprinkles his film with little flourishes like this to remind us of the semi-created nature of what we are watching, from Mr Murdstone’s hand looming into the Peggottys’ boat to pluck Copperfield into the next scene, through to the use of projected imagery at key points to fill in visually backstories the characters in the scene are relating.

The book has been well pruned and structured – and this is in some ways a triumph of compression, since it ticks off nearly all the main storylines of the plot (with some changes) and includes all the main characters. The real purist will decry such things as the loss of Barkis and Mr Micawber’s famous lines, or the translation of Mr Creakle into a factory owner or Rosa Dartworth into Steerforth’s mother. But these are necessities of adaptation and much of the storyline remains the same (if abbreviated). The script punches up the comedy a great deal – Iannucci has been vocal in his feeling that Dickens does not get the appreciation he deserves as a comic writer.

The script also digs up a few gems in the novel – Copperfield’s nervousness in reading, his inability to read to Murdstone’s gaze, is imaginatively reinterpreted as dyslexia. The semi-Freudian longing he feels for the warmth and innocence of his lost childhood is neatly captured by casting Morfydd Clark (very endearing and charmingly ditsy) as both his mother and his first love Dora. There are several laugh-out loud moments and a charmingly freewheeling love for absurdity.

But what doesn’t work is that the heart and soul of the novel has been stripped out. There is, to put it frankly, no pain or difficulty here. The tears in Dev Patel’s eyes at the end of the film as he closes his recital with the audience and reflects on the triumphs and losses of his life feel unearned. Put frankly nothing seems that hard, for all poverty rears its head at time. Even the Murdstones are less fearsome and cruel than they need to be. Worst of all, anything of any real emotional depth or tragedy from the book is removed. The two key tragic deaths of the book are actively reversed here, with both Dora and Ham surviving at the end. The complexities of Copperfield’s feelings for Dora and Agnes are resolved with immense ease for a traditional happy ending in a garden of the heroes surrounded by friends and families (exactly the sort of happy ending that Greta Gerwig gently poked fun at in Little Women). 

It’s all boiled down and told for jokes and the emotional engagement just isn’t there. Dev Patel enters the film too early – Copperfield is a young adult before he even heads to his aunt’s house – meaning the lost, vulnerable sense of sad childhood turning into a happy one is completely lost, and Copperfield’s fragility is too quickly brushed aside. Mr Micawber (a funny turn from Capaldi, but far too wheedling) is played so much for laughs that his essential decency and kindness is lost in favour of a man who spends his life borrowing cash. Too often humour is the first and only port of call, and finally it crushes the heart out of the story.

There are triumphs in the film’s cast. Hugh Laurie is simply outstanding as Mr Dick – warm, funny, wise, surreal, eccentric, half a philosopher, half an engaging and excited child – it’s Laurie’s finest performance ever on film. Benedict Wong is very funny as the alcoholic Mr Wicklfield. Tilda Swinton has great fun as a battleaxe but wise Miss Trotwood. Nikki Annuka-Bird could cut glass as Mrs Steerforth. Aneurin Barnard makes for a charmingly dissolute Steerforth. Ben Whishaw is terrific as the unctuous and ambitious Uriah Heep. The colour-blind casting works a treat to bring a range of wonderful actors in.

It’s just a shame the story doesn’t translate as well. There is a theme somewhere in here of Copperfield trying to work out his identity (much prominence is given to his multiple names and nicknames) but it never really takes flight, serving as a fig leaf of an arc rather than an actual arc. It’s a film full of jokes and fine moments – but with no heart, and no real engagement with the audience, it ends up feeling far longer than reading the book.

Nixon (1995)

Anthony Hopkins triumphs as Nixon in Oliver Stone’s surprisingly sympathetic biopic

Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Anthony Hopkins (Richard Nixon), Joan Allen (Pat Nixon), James Woods (HR Haldeman), Powers Boothe (Alexander Haig), Larry Hagman (“Jack Jones”), Ed Harris (E. Howard Hunt), Dan Hedaya (Trini Cardoza), Bob Hoskins (J. Edgar Hoover), Madeline Kahn (Martha Mitchell), EG Marshall (John Mitchell), David Paymer (Ron Ziegler), David Hyde Pierce (John Dean), Paul Sorvino (Henry Kissinger), Mary Steenburgen (Hannah Nixon), JT Walsh (John Ehrlichman), Sam Waterston (Richard Helms), Brian Bedford (Clyde Tolson), Tom Bower (Francis Nixon), Kevin Dunn (Charles Colson), Annabeth Gish (Julie Nuxon), Tom Goldwyn (Harold Nixon), Saul Rubinek (Herbert G Klein)

In 1995, there was one person the chronicler of the 1970s American experience, Oliver Stone, hadn’t covered: Richard M Nixon. The man who was the embodiment of the dark scar on the American consciousness, the grim, unlovable presence behind the war in Vietnam, the protests and the deep, never-ending wound of Watergate, who seemed to drag the country further and further into the abyss. The man who besmirched the office, the least popular president ever, the national shame. With Stone’s searing attacks on everything from Vietnam policy to the conspiracies behind the Kennedy assassination, you’d expect his film on Nixon to be a condemnation. What people didn’t expect was a film as strikingly even-handed as this, which recasts Nixon not as a gloating villain, but a Shakespearean figure, a Greek tragedy of a man destroyed by chronic character flaws.

Opening with a crushed Nixon, like a drunken Gollum cradling his precious, listening to his precious tapes in the bowels of the White House during his final days in office, the film is told in a fascinatingly non-linear style – loosely falling into two acts, cutting backwards and forwards in time. The first act covers most of Nixon’s career up to the presidency, focusing on his Quaker childhood and the influence of his mother Hannah (Mary Steenburgen), his defeat in the 1960 election to Kennedy and his years rebuilding his political standing. The second half takes a more linear approach, covering a Presidency becoming increasingly bogged down in the inept cover-up of Watergate and increasingly desperate attempts to save his presidency, intermixed with foreign policy successes.

What is really striking is that Stone’s movie finds a great deal of sympathy for this troubled and complex man. He’s a man who has greatness in his grasp, dedicated, intelligent and with vision – but fatally undermined by self-loathing, self-pity and a bubbling resentment about not having the love of the people. Like Lear raging against the storm, or Macbeth bemoaning the impact of his vile deeds, Stone’s Nixon becomes a sympathetic figure, even while the film makes no apologies for his actions, his aggressive bombing of Cambodia (the film notes at its end the bombing led directly to the massacres of the Khmer Rouge) or his failures to claim any responsibility for how he caused his own end.

Stone’s empathetic vision of Nixon is shaped largely by Anthony Hopkins’ titanic performance in the lead role. Hopkins makes no real effort – beyond teeth and hair – to look like Nixon, but brilliantly embodies Nixon’s awkward physicality and, above all, his angry, bitter, resentful personality. It’s not an imitation, but it totally captures him. Hopkins has got it, and the disintegration of Nixon over the course of the film into the shambling, miserable, twitching, even slightly unhinged mess he became in the final days of his presidency is astounding. 

It works because Hopkins never loses sense of the potential for greatness in Nixon – sure he’s socially awkward (Hopkins superbly captures Nixon’s awkward grin, his stumbling nervousness in conversation), but politically he’s assured, confident and has huge insight into realpolitik. His flaw is that he wants to be both the master politician and the people’s champ, to be Nixon and JFK, to have the people cheer him to the rafters. It’s a longing that turns to resentment, fuelling insecurity and fear, that causing him to be so afraid of being cheated that he cheats first and bigger.

It’s that potential for greatness that swims through Stone’s masterfully made, electric film. Stone’s love for mixing film stock, fake newsreel footage, snazzy camerawork, switching colour stock, stylistically eclectic sound and music choices and bombastic lecturing comes to the fore here – and I accept it won’t be for everyone. But for me it works. It’s a big, dramatic movie because it covers an epic theme. From its early echoes of Citizen Kane – the White House as Xanadu, those missing 18 ½ minutes of the tape Nixon’s “Rosebud” – through to the accelerated pace and film stock as events spiral out of the President’s control, it’s an explosion of style that really works, even if there are points which are too on-the-nose (a scene where Nixon’s dinner talk of war is interrupted by a steak that leaks gallons of blood as he cuts into it, is clumsy in the extreme).

Stone’s theories revolve around the true villain being the government-financial power system itself, a grindingly oppressive beast chews up and spits out the men who think they can ride it. Nixon may know about the danger of the system, but he’s as powerless as anyone else. Its tendrils extend everywhere, from the creepily domineering CIA chief Helms (Sam Waterston, unsettlingly intimidating in scenes restored in the director’s cut) to the shady Texan money interests (led by an excellent Larry Hagman of all people) who sure-as-shit want to get rid of that liberal, Cuban surrender monkey Kennedy, by any means necessary (“Say Kennedy dont run in 64?”). 

Nixon wants to control it, to do some good – and the film is excellent at stressing how Nixon’s poverty-filled Quaker background gave him a drive to achieve but also a chippy insecurity and moral standards from his imperious mother he can never hope to meet – but what hope does he have? In any case, his own deep moral failings doom any chance of forging his own goals, sucking him into a quagmire where long-running dirty deeds, shady deals and unedifying company consume him. “When they look at you they see what want to be. When they look at me they see what they are” Nixon complains to the painting of Kennedy, the rival whom he can never eclipse, the man born with all the advantages Nixon never had, the millionaire embraced by the people while the working-class Nixon is reviled. It’s these resentments that consume and destroy Nixon, and Stone presents this as an epic tragedy of a great politician, crushed by his fundamentally human flaws.

Around Hopkins, Stone assembles a brilliant cast. Joan Allen is superb as Nixon’s loving but insightful wife who won’t shy to speak truth to power. James Woods is perfect as the bullishly aggressive, fiercely loyal Haldeman. Paul Sorvino does a wonderfully arch impersonation of Kissinger, always keeping his distance. David Hyde Pierce makes a smoothly innocent but determinedly self-preserving John Dean, Powers Boothe a wonderful cold Alexander Haig. Only Bob Hoskins gives a performance slightly too broad as Hoover – but he still laces the role with a crackling menace.

Nixon is a great film, an explosion of style (perhaps at times a little too much), which painstakingly strips bare the President’s psyche – his doubt, guilt, bitterness, resentments and finally overwhelming self-pity. Powered by a titanically well-observed performance by Anthony Hopkins, who is just about perfect in every frame – every nuance feels real – Nixon is a wallow in the dark underbelly of America, which hints throughout at the even greater dangers that lie under the surface, the powerful system maintaining the status quo that sees presidents come and go, but never allows any real change. It’s a remarkable film.

Little Women (2019)

March Sisters: Assemble! For Greta Gerwig’s superlative adaptation of Little Women

Director: Greta Gerwig

Cast: Saoirse Ronan (Jo March), Emma Watson (Meg March), Florence Pugh (Amy March), Eliza Scanlen (Beth March), Laura Dern (Marmee March), Timothée Chalamet (Laurie), Meryl Streep (Aunt March), Tracy Letts (Mr Dashwood), Bob Odenkirk (Father March), James Norton (John Brooke), Louis Garrel (Professor Friedrich Bhaer), Chris Cooper (Mr Laurence)

Spoilers: Such as they are but discussion of the film’s ending (or rather Greta Gerwig’s interpretation of it) can be found herein…

There are few novels as well beloved as Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. So much so – and so successful have been the numerable adaptations, not least Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 version – that it’s hard to see what a new adaptation could bring to the story that hasn’t been covered before. A new window on the story is triumphantly found though in Greta Gerwig’s fresh and vibrant adaptation, blessed with some terrific performances, and telling its own very distinctive version of the story.

Gerwig’s version crucially starts off in the sisters’ adult lives: Jo (Saoirse Ronan) in New York struggling to make it as a writer, while Meg (Emma Watson) nurses the ill Beth (Eliza Scanlon) back home with Marmee (Laura Dern), and Amy (Florence Pugh) encounters their childhood friend Laurie (Timothée Chalamet) in Paris. This is intercut with the story of their growing up in Massachusetts, with the past story line eventually catching up with the present day. 

If that sounds like it should make the story hard to follow, don’t worry – this is astonishingly confident work from Gerwig, wonderfully directed with zest, fire and imagination (making her exclusion from the Best Director list at the Oscars even more inexplicable – chalk that up I guess to sexism against pictures about “girls” and the fact it’s not as overtly flashy as the rest of this year’s nominees). This takes a familiar book, and fires it up with all the energy of independent, modern cinema, creating something that feels hugely fresh and dynamic. The cross cutting between the two timelines work beautifully – not only is it always perfectly clear, but it also makes for some wonderful contrasts between events in the past and present. None less than the recovery of Beth from TB being followed (with an almost shot-by-shot echo in its filming) by the reactions to Beth’s death. Inventions like this add even greater depth and meaning to the moments and hammer home some terrific emotional high points. 

Gerwig’s style throughout the film invests the story with a great energy, particularly in creating the warm bohemian attitude of the March family. This really feels like a family – conversations between them are fast, people talk relaxedly over each other, the chemistry is completely real, and the camera captures in its movement the warmth and energy of these characters who are completely comfortable in each other’s presence. It’s no surprise that Laurie is taken so quickly with this family, or wants to be part of it. Gerwig invests the family with a dynamic, excited sense of freedom and urgency. Helped by the warm glow that the childhood sections of the film are shot with, these scenes hum with a glorious sense of familial warmth and excitement. 

The camera often moves with careful, but perfectly planned, movement through scenes, mixed in with moments of fast movement – following Jo through streets, or the playful exuberance of Jo and Laurie’s first meeting (and dance) at a society ball. It’s a vibe that carries across to the performances, anchored by Saoirse Ronan’s fabulous performance as Jo. Fervent, intelligent, idealistic but also stubborn, prickly and difficult, Ronan’s Jo carries large chunks of the film, with the character skilfully mixed in with elements of Louisa May Alcott. Ronan most impressively suggests a warmth and familial love for Laurie at all times, that never (on her side) tips into a real romantic feeling. She also has superb chemistry in any case with the excellent Timothée Chalamet, who is just about perfect as a dreamy, but quietly conventional in his way, Laurie.

Gerwig’s primary rejig – and a reflection of the new structure she is chosen – is to allow more screen time to Amy, usually the least popular of the four sisters. She’s also helped by a sensational performance by the Oscar-nominated Florence Pugh as Amy, who not only plays a character perfectly from her mid-teens to her early twenties, but also invests the character with huge amounts of light and shade. The film gives a great deal of time to Amy’s time in Paris – her frustration with living in Jo’s shadow, her longing for her own artistic career (and recognition of her conventional talent – brilliantly established by a wordless glance Pugh gives an impressionist painting compared to her own literal effort) and her own romantic feelings and dreams. Cross cutting this with her past actions – her more temperamental and less sympathetic moments (burning Jo’s book!) that have pained generations – gives the audience far more sympathy and understanding for her. Pugh is also pretty much flawless in the film.

There are a host of superb performances though, with Watson capturing the duller sense of conventional duty in Meg, but spicing it with a sad regret for chances lost; Laura Dern is wonderfully warm as Marmee, but mixes in a loneliness and isolation below the surface; Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep sparkle in cameos. There is barely a false step in the case.

All the action eventually boils towards the ending – and Gerwig’s bravest and most unconventional decisions, in subtly adjusting the final conclusion of the story. At first it seems that the cross cutting of the story has short changed heavily the Bhaer-Jo relationship (Bhaer appears only in the first half an hour of the film and the end), as it cannot lean too heavily on romance when many in the audience will still be expecting a Jo-Laurie match up. 

But Gerwig actually uses this as a skilful deconstruction of the novel. Always feeling that Alcott desired Jo to be a single author – but inserted the marriage to Bhaer at the end to help sell the book – Gerwig effectively has Jo do the same thing. At a crucial moment in the final scenes, we cut to Jo negotiating with her publisher (a droll cameo by Tracey Letts), who insists on a happy ending. Cue a “movie style” chase to intercept a departing Bhaer (shot with the golden hue of the past, while Jo’s meeting with the publisher has the colder colours of the present). Our final shot shows Jo watching her book being printed, cross cut with a golden hued vision of “Jo’s” school with husband in tow. 

It’s a genius little touch, as it’s subtle enough to allow viewers to take the happy ending as it appears in the surface, but smart and clever enough to make the movie unique and different from the other versions (and that ending from the 1994 version is hard to top!). It may undermine the final relationship – and offend those who like the idea of Jo deciding she wants something different than she at first thought – but in its freshness it can’t be challenged. It also makes for a film from Gerwig that is both fresh and exciting and also bracingly and thrillingly in love with Alcott and her work.

Ford v Ferrari (Le Mans '66) (2019)

Christian Bale as maverick driver Ken Miles in the functional but fun Ford v Ferrari

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Matt Damon (Caroll Shelby), Christian Bale (Ken Miles), Jon Bernthal (Lee Iacocca), Caitriona Balfe (Mollie Miles), Tracy Letts (Henry Ford II), Josh Lucas (Leo Beebe), Noah Jupe (Peter Miles), Remo Girone (Enzo Ferrari), Ray McKinnon (Phil Remington), JJ Feild (Roy Lunn), Jack McMullen (Charlie Agapiou)

There are few more exhilarating things than going really, really damn fast. It’s a primal glee that James Mangold’s racing film Ford v Ferrari (or Le Mans ’66 as it seems to be known over here) taps into, roaring with exciting, fast-paced energy lashed onto a good old buddy movie as two plucky underdogs get the chance to overturn the champs and claim the title. It’s the story of any number of sports movies, but it still works here. It ain’t broke, after all.

It’s the early 1960s and the sales of the Ford Company are down: the baby boomers don’t want to be driving the dull, safe cars of their parents. They want something super sexy. Despite his hesitation Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) is persuaded the best way to get that sexy image is to get a racing car – and if he can’t buy Enzo Ferrari’s (Remo Girone) company, then by hell he’ll spend whatever it takes to give Ford the best racing team in the world. Targeting the Le Mans 24 hour race, he recruits retired-driver-turned-designer Caroll Shelby (Matt Damon) to mastermind building a car – and Shelby recruits demanding, prickly, maverick Brit driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale) to help him design it and then drive the thing. But what to do when Miles’ blunt plain-speaking and individuality looks like it won’t make him the best spokesman for selling Ford cars?

On the surface Ford v Ferrari is pretty much your standard Sports film. Two teams, an underdog and a champion, a pair of mavericks who think outside the box, the struggle for success – met with initial failure before victory – all told through a familiar structure of brothers-in-arms, obstructing suits, supportive wives at home and plenty of carefully detailed expert recreation of sporting events. It’s a collection of familiar ingredients, but very well mixed together by Mangold (one of Hollywood’s finest middle-rank directors, a sort of heir to Lumet).

The real twist however is that the rivalry is not really about Ford and Ferrari. In fact the film might have been better titled Ford vs Ford. Because the main thing standing in the way of Shelby and Miles isn’t Ferrari – with whom they actually have a rivalry built on mutual respect – but with the bottom-line, sales-first suits who are backing them. It’s a parallel with everything where sales and the buck count more than anything, but you feel Mangold might well have related it most to Hollywood producers. What is Ken Miles, but the genius auteur director who the money-men just won’t trust to churn out the mass-market product they need to lift the share price? Henry Ford (very drily played by Tracy Letts) may have one visceral moment of excitement when placed in the passenger seat of a fast car – but fundamentally he doesn’t give a damn about the sport at all, except how it could help him shift a few more Mustangs.

Shelby and Miles’ struggles are not with the car, the engineering problems or Ferrari – they’re with the Ford VPS (in particular Josh Lucas’ incomparably smarmy Leo Beebe, a corporate man to his fingertips who probably bleeds stock tips) who want a product they can sell, far more than a product that can win. Obstacles are constantly thrown towards Shelby and Miles from their bosses – everything from engine design to race strategy receives a series of notes, comments and instructions from the Ford hierarchy. The choice of driver is most important of all – and they don’t want the demanding Ken Miles behind the wheel of their car. Because mavericks like that don’t sell Mustangs.

As Miles, Christian Bale gives a performance of pure enjoyment. Juggling a version of his own natural accent (which sounds odd – part cockney, part scouse – but works brilliantly) Bale gives the part just the right amount of that peculiar chippy Britishness, that resentment of people in authority, that hostile reaction to the stench of bullshit. Driven, determined but totally unwilling to suffer fools – exhibited almost immediately with him dressing down a prat who isn’t a good enough driver to handle the sports car he’s purchased – Miles is clearly never going to be the company man Ford wants. But with his passion for “that perfect lap”, his determination to work night and day to achieve that and – in a nice change – his warmth for his family and equal decision making with his wife (a slightly thankless part for Catriona Balfe) he’s a character you quickly take to your heart. It’s a great, charisma-led performance from Bale, who also gets nearly all the best lines.

It does suck a bit of the oxygen from Damon, who plays the straight-man as Shelby who is just as passionate but can (just about) speak Corporatese. With a Texan drawl, Damon does the legwork of the movie extremely generously, quietly driving many of the scenes and handling much of the more emotional arc of the movie. The two actors form a superb chemistry – peaking with a hilarious fight scene, your chance to see Batman clobber Jason Bourne with a loaf of bread (both actors, famous for muscular fight scenes, clearly enjoy a fight scene straight out of Bridget Jones). It’s a bromance that really works – and carries at certain points a genuine emotional force.

Mangold packages this material perfectly – and the racing sequences are brilliantly done, engrossing, speaker-shaking displays of racing, fabulously edited. The film itself is probably too long, and the sections away from the race track are sometimes so familiar in their structure and tone that they sometimes drag a little bit, as if the fierce momentum of the racing scenes can’t carry across to the rest of the film. But with fine performances and expert handling, this is certainly a number you’ll be happy to test drive.

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

Taika Waititi directs and is an imaginary Hitler in his coming-of-age/Nazi Germany satire Jojo Rabbit

Director: Taika Waititi

Cast: Roman Griffin Davis (Johannes “Jojo Rabbit” Betzler), Thomasin McKenzie (Elsa Korr), Scarlett Johansson (Rosie Betzler), Taika Waititi (Adolf Hitler), Sam Rockwell (Captain Klenzendorf), Rebel Wilson (Fraulain Rahm), Alfie Allen (Lt Finkel), Stephen Merchant (Deertz), Archie Yates (Yorki)

A comedy set in Nazi Germany? Well if there is one thing you need to get right, it’s the tone. Taika Waititi’s comedy about a boy with an imaginary friend who just happens to be a version of Adolf Hitler more or less does so – although I’d argue it’s less a comedy and more of a terrifying condemnation of the horrific powers of indoctrination. But that sells a lot less well in trailers doesn’t it?

Set in late 1944, the boy in question is Johannes (Roman Griffin Davis – a revelatory performance) a ten-year old who wants to be a passionate Nazi but is undone by his own underlying sweetness. Not that it stops him believing everything he’s told by the regime and its theories around Jews, re-enforced by his imaginary best friend, a childishly stroppy version of Adolf Hitler (played by Waititi himself). Nicknamed Jojo Rabbit after his failure to kill a rabbit on a Hitler Youth indoctrination camp, then later blowing himself with a grenade meaning he can no longer qualify for military service, Jojo sees his dreams of becoming the ultimate Aryan fading away. Things become even more conflicted when he discovers his secretly anti-Nazi mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a teenage Jewish girl Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in the walls of his late sister’s bedroom.

Waititi’s film returns to his affectionate roots of coming-of-age stories but in an entirely different setting – here the child must grow up by learning to reject the vile ideologies that have been hammered into him by the system. Waititi shoots the entire film from the perspective of the child’s view of the world, meaning the horrors of the war are kept largely at a distance from us (until a sudden and terrible event brings them overwhelmingly into frame). The Nazi world around Jojo looks like some glorious Enid Blyton summer, the colour of which only gradually disappears from the film as event proceed. It’s a neat visual way of capturing the child’s innocence.

This also means many of the characters are seen from Jojo’s perspective. Most obviously Adolf Hitler (the imaginary one), played with gleeful comic gusto by Waititi, is far from the actual dictator but is a sort of ten-year-old’s idea of what he might be like, childish, oddly innocent in places, prone to strops – but also has enough darkness in him (which emerges more and more as the film goes on) to show that he is still part of the hateful ideology the real Hitler promoted. Similarly, Jojo’s first impression of Elsa is shot and framed like some sort of creepy horror film – matching the ideas that have been indoctrinated into him by the regime that the Jews are a near-Satanic threat.

That indoctrination is a big part of the film’s primary themes. An early sequence at a Hitler Youth camp is less funny – even if it does have moments of brash comedy and some good jokes – more horrifying for the mantra of violence, race hate and slaughter that the regime is preaching almost every second that its representatives appear on screen. It’s actually chilling seeing this group of impressionable kids succumbing so completely to the excitement of this relentless onslaught of propaganda. The passion that the Nazis inspire is wonderfully caught by Waititi in the credits, with Leni Reifenstahl footage beautifully recut to the Beatles singing in German – it’s hard to miss the parallels. (The film makes some neat use of modern music, with David Bowie also popping up).

Jojo however is still a sweet, kind, generous boy under the surface – however much he has swallowed the constant message from his government that he should aspire to being a cold eyed killer. Waititi’s message is that there is still hope in the roots of next generation, however much the current generation does it’s best to mess that up. It’s something that his mother – exquisitely played by an Oscar-nominated Scarlett Johansson with a wonderful sense of playfulness hiding an intense sadness – clings to desperately, knowing the sweet boy she loves is still largely there, however twisted he is by a cruel ideology.

It’s the relationship with Elsa that helps bring that out, with Thomasin McKenzie wonderful as an initially hostile young girl, determined to never be a victim, who softens and thaws as she senses the kindness in this boy. Her hiding is all part of Rosie’s own defiance of the regime and its oppression, the horrors of which – from random searches to executions – slowly begin to creep into the film. 

If there is a problem with the film, it is that the darker elements of this film – and there are many – often play a little awkwardly against the more comedic and even farcical elements. Waititi as an actor gets the tone right – but others, particularly Rebel Wilson as an oppressive Nazi – head too far into unfunny, tonally flat farce. Sam Rockwell does a decent job as a German army officer, even if his obvious bitterness for the war effort and contempt for Nazism makes him an unlikely candidate to be running an indoctrination camp, but even he veers sometimes too far onto the side of flat farce. Other than Waititi, only Stephen Merchant as an officious Nazi official – including a running joke of continuous Heil Hitler greetings – gets the balance right between comedy and darkness.

It’s a balance the film doesn’t always make very successfully – but it’s balanced by the warmth that it feels for Jojo, the excellence of Griffin Davis and McKenzie’s performances, and the moments of genuine shock and trauma that surprise the viewers and head the film openly into very darker territory. Less a comedy and more a plea to allow children to be children, not victims of the views and desires of adults, it’s a thought provoking film.

1917 (2019)

George MacKay is lost in the horrors of war in Sam Mendes’ one-shot 1917

Director: Sam Mendes

Cast: George MacKay (Lance Corporal Will Schofield), Dean-Charles Chapman (Lance Corporal Tom Blake), Benedict Cumberbatch (Colonel Mackenzie), Colin Firth (General Erinmore), Richard Madden (Captain Blake), Andrew Scott (Lt. Leslie), Mark Strong (Captain Smith), Claire Duburcq (Lauri), Daniel Mays (Sgt Saunders), Adrian Scarborough (Major Hepburn), Jamie Parker (Lt Richards), Michael Jibson (Lt Hutton), Richard McCabe (Colonel Collins)

No film can even begin to capture the unspeakable horror of war, and those of us who have never been in the middle of it can only imagine what it must have been like for those who have. Based on the experiences of his grandfather Alfred, Sam Mendes’ World War I story tries to immerse the viewers in the experience by staging a film designed to play out in real time, in two epic takes (actually a series of very long takes seamlessly spliced together). It’s a technical accomplishment, but also a film partly dominated by the precision of its construction rather than the emotion of its telling.

One day in April 1917, two young Lance-Corporals, brave and selfless Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and more war-weary Will Schofield (George MacKay) are tasked with a desperate mission by General Erinmore (Colin Firth). The next morning, a British regiment will walk into a trap set by German forces. Blake and Schofield must take a message through no-man’s land, cancelling the regiment’s planned attack, or 1,600 men will die – including Blake’s brother who is serving with the regiment. 

Mendes’ film is a triumph whenever it is in motion. The time-limited race to travel across miles of hostile land – through no-man’s land, booby-trapped abandoned trenches, hazardous open fields and ruined towns that have become battlegrounds – works a treat whenever our heroes are constantly moving forward. Drawing a strange inspiration from Lord of the Rings, with its quest structure and Schofield as a Samwise to Blake’s Bilbo, the film is compellingly completed with the over-the-shoulder, walking-alongside intimacy of the camera work that follows every step of this journey, that never pulls ahead or shows us something that the soldiers can’t see and keeps us nearly constantly (bar one stunning shot of a ruined town lit only by firelight and early dawn) at the level of the soldiers.

It’s an epic experience film, and Mendes’ camerawork and ingenuity in the shooting create the impression of a one-take film – some shots seem to travel at least a mile, through winding trenches, with our heroes. The effect is justified by the desire of the film to throw us into the experience of the soldiers and to create the impression that we are sharing a journey with them – and hammers home the time pressure these men are operating under as we experience everything first hand, including the only undisguised cut (and time jump) in the film. The horrors of the war are superbly shown – dead bodies, many bloated or deformed by exposure, litter the frame but tellingly bring little comment from the soldiers, demonstrating how accustomed they have become to such sights. Each frame seems covered with muddy surfaces, and sharp freezing chills. Technically it’s a marvel, and you have to admire Mendes’ ambition in even attempting such a thing. 

Perhaps, though, that is one problem with the film. You are so impressed with the showy intelligence and grace of the camera movements, the ingenuity needed to keep the camera rolling through takes lasting ten minutes or more and travelling miles at a time, that move in and around confined rooms and trenches, that you at time spend as much (if not more) time marvelling at the brilliance of the film making as you do feeling the emotion of the story. While the long takes add immeasurably to the many moments of peril, dread and terror that the characters go through (helped also by Thomas Newman’s eerily unsettling score), they also become as much about admiring the technical brilliance as they are investing in the story.

Of course, the story has been boiled down to something very simple and elemental – and it avoids many clichés you half-expect from the start. But the film itself gets slightly less interesting when the relentless march forward stops, when the characters slow down or take moments of reflection. A section in the middle of the film where the action pauses around a young French woman hiding in a bombed out French town doesn’t quite work, and has a slight air of spinning plates – you could have allowed a longer break in the single take effect to take us from one event to another. In fact you wonder if a film that had more of a time jump or had been constructed around 3-4 clear long takes with time jumps might have worked better.

This is not to criticise the two actors who embody the leads. George MacKay is superb as a soldier who experiences immense suffering and torment on a journey he is less than willing to undertake from the first, and finds himself opening up his emotions and feelings more and more as the film progresses. Dean-Charles Chapman is a good match as a slightly more naïve youngster, desperate to do the right thing and selfless in his courage. These two move on a journey that essentially sees them handed over from one big-star cameo to another (something that is sometimes a little distracting, if necessary to allow these brief appearances to have character impact) with Firth, Strong, Cumberbatch, Madden et al all delivering terrific work in a few short minutes on screen.

Mendes’ direction technically is faultless, and the style chosen really adds huge and unrepeatable visual benefits, all superbly caught by Roger Deakins’ sublimely beautiful photography. At one moment a flare is fired – and we see it arch out of shot and then repair behind us in real time as the characters move forward. At another, an aerial dogfight goes from distant to alarmingly close. The countryside recedes hauntingly as a ride is hitched from a motorised regiment. 

The single-take effect does make it far easier to relate in these moments to the soldiers. It works less well at smaller moments – and arguably could have been replaced by a more conventional style here to give even more impact to the rest – but its execution is perfect. Maybe too perfect, as it doesn’t always make room for the heart. Hollywood’s directors seem more and more drawn to the long take for the immersive, big-screen quality they carry – four of the last five Oscars have gone to directors whose films are almost entirely made up with them. But they create – as is sometimes the case with 1917 – something that is a product for the largest screen, immersive experiences that perhaps lack rewarding depth on later revisits.

The Greatest Showman (2017)

Hugh Jackman excels in The Greatest Showman, like a Broadway show bought straight to film

Director: Michael Gracey

Cast: Hugh Jackman (PT Barnum), Michelle Williams (Charity Hallett-Barnum), Zac Efron (Philip Carlyle), Rebecca Ferguson (Jenny Lind), Zendaya (Anne Wheeler), Keala Settle (Lettie Lutz), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (WD Wheeler), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Deng Yan), Paul Sparks (James Gordon Bennett), Sam Humphrey (Charles Stratton)

In early 2018, the whole world seemed to go crazy for The Greatest Showman. A big old-fashioned film musical that wouldn’t look out of place with Gene Kelly in the lead, people went to the cinema again and again to see this escapist song-and-dance epic. Based loosely on the life of PT Barnum (Hugh Jackman), covering his marriage to childhood love Charity (Michelle Williams) and the creation of his Museum of Curiosities (funded through some chicanery with banks), he staffs the museum with “freaks” whom he encourages to embrace their nature and entertain the crowds. The “circus” is a huge success, but will Barnum be seduced by his desire for greater fame and acceptance in the cultural high circles that have no time for his mass entertainment? And how will his fascination with opera singer Jennie Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) affect his marriage?

If you get the idea from that plot summary that this is rather safe and unchallenging plot-wise, you would be right. Structurally this doesn’t offer anything more than hundreds of musicals before it – a hero aims for the stars, loses his roots on the way, only to triumphantly rediscover them and remember why he got into this business in the first place. Yup that’s your classic Hollywood plot here. And it doesn’t matter a damn.

Because The Greatest Showman, like the shows Barnum offered the crowds, knows exactly what it is: an old-fashioned Hollywood musical, shot like a classic piece of Broadway spectacle, crammed to the gills with hugely exciting and dynamic musicals performers ripping through a series of impressive songs and some stunningly choreographed numbers. Who gives a damn if you’ve seen the story before, when it’s so well done, the actors so engaging and the highlights on the way to brilliant to watch. Come to this with your mind set for the West End, and you’ll love it. Expect to see La La Land and you are in for a disappointment (or a pleasant surprise!)

Gracey’s film is unashamedly old-fashioned, and shot with a confident stillness that puts the actors, dancers and singers front-and-centre rather than the flourishes of a director. In contrast to some over-directed musical numbers, Gracey is happy to place the camera so we can see all the numbers perfectly. And why wouldn’t he when all the actors can dance as well as this? I want to see every step of the intricate choreography (that would have thrilled Kelly) from Jackman and Efron in The Other Side. I want to see every step of the thrilling group dance number From Now On. I want to marvel at Efron and Zendaya soaring through the skies on trapeze ropes in Rewrite the Stars.

It’s a musical that chose its cast carefully, requiring that they should all be capable of the sort of feats of physical and musical perfection that we all enjoy watching on Strictly every week. In all this, the snubs of the critics seems neither here nor there – hilariously the film always commentates on its own terrible reviews in advance (!) in the character of James Gordon Bennett, a humourless snobby theatre reviewer – it’s a film that is shot in the arm of pure entertainment. 

I mean you’d need to have a heart of pure cold not to feel some serious emotions during Jackman and Williams’ beautiful rooftop ballet during A Million Dreams. What I particularly liked about this was its unabashed, carefully designed artificiality – like a blast of 1950s Minnelli musicals, this uses painted backdrops and studio locations to beautiful effect to create a larger-than-life, theatrical world of hyper reality. It really helps you to get even more swept up by it all.

But then you also get swept up from having an actor as charismatic as Hugh Jackman in the lead. Oozing charm and grace from every pore, Jackman is riveting in the role, his grin a mile wide, his skills as a singer and (most especially) a dancer shown off to stunning effect. He turns moments that could have rogueish qualities into sweetness, he is impossible not to root for. Sure as an actor he’s not stretched with the conventional arc Barnum has, but does that matter when he is giving this all he has. It’s a hugely, overwhelmingly enjoyable performance of pure charisma that I can’t imagine any other actor in Hollywood having the chutzpah to pull off. It’s so skilled that he never overwhelms the film but you could move the whole performance into a 1,000-seater theatre and it would still work perfectly.

The rest of the cast all lift their considerable game to match the commitment and expertise of the lead. Williams showcases her own musical talents, while Efron and Zendaya have a truly affecting romance at the heart of the film (while also being considerably compelling musical performers). Rebecca Ferguson has the least rewarding role (and is also dubbed for the high soprano singing), but does a decent job as someone you could imagine turning Barnum’s head. The rest of the cast playing assorted circus performers create a truly family atmosphere, with Keala Settle and Sam Humphrey particularly fine.

You could argue that the film – with its message of acceptance and lack of judgement – flies a little bit in the face of the real Barnum (“there’s a sucker born every minute”) who probably was partly exploiting his acts for cash. The treatment of Jennie Lind as an increasingly scheming would-be-seductress is a sad slur on a woman who gave most of her earnings to charity. In fact you wish allthe names had been changed to distance us from reality.

But the film gets away with it because it is basically a heartfelt and genuine piece of work that, most of all, like a huge Broadway musical just wants to entertain the audience. And on that score it works – you’ll get invested in the characters and their story and you’ll find yourself humming the songs afterwards and trying (failing) to dance those steps. Go into it in the right mindset, and you’ll find a delight.

The Two Popes (2019)

Hopkins and Pryce excel in Fernando Merielles’ witty and thought-provoking The Two Popes

Director: Fernando Meirelles

Cast: Jonathan Pryce (Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Pope Francis), Anthony Hopkins (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI)

Hollywood loves a buddy movie. And what buddy movie could be more off the wall than Two Popes: one a German traditionalist with a reputation for rigid interpretation of church law who reads Latin for fun, the other an easy-going Argentinian reformer with a love of football and tango. So that’s what you get with The Two Popes, a surprisingly funny and engaging film about Papal politics, dashed with a pleasingly even-handed perspective on its two central characters.

In 2012, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) is planning to hand in his resignation as Archbishop of Buenos Aires to Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins), now in his seventh year of Pope. Bergoglio feels that he has little left to offer the church, and this own reformist ideas are out of step with the current leadership. He feels his best calling would be to return to a simpler, parish priest life. But Benedict XVI summons him to the Vatican to dissuade him – leading to a series of prolonged heart-to-heart conversations between the two that see a thaw in their relationship, heartfelt confessions from both men on their failings, and Benedict’s revelation that he plans to resign from the Pontificate – and wants Bergoglio to succeed him, as Bergoglio can offer the reform to the church that Benedict cannot.

The Two Popes is a terrific adaptation by Anthony McCarten of his own stage play. It shows us Benedict’s conservative, safety-first policies (towards everything from financial scandals to child abuse scandals) and Bergoglio’s more modern, inclusive church, but largely avoids holding one up as wholly superior to the other, or turning the story into a simple good guy/bad guy conflict. Instead it focuses on showing the faults and positives of both men, and how both men felt a calling and need for their service at different times – and how this loss of calling (something both men suffer from at the start of the film) can be reborn through patience, listening and reflection. Meirelles directs this very theatrical piece sharply, with a keen eye for expanding it into film with a combination of intriguing angles, visual style and confident editing.

Unfolding over the course of several increasingly heartfelt conversations – which progress from awkwardly blunt confrontation, through thawing openness, to something near to a confessional – this is a film that uses the Hollywood convention of a mismatched couple to allow an intriguing exploration of the price and value of faith and the difficulty of duty. Sharp commentary is made on the backgrounds of both men – Benedict growing up in Nazi Germany, the sharp criticism of Bergoglio’s perceived lack of action during the Military Junta coup, which led to his dismissal as head of the Jesuit order in Argentina. Both express guilt, regret and even touches of self-loathing – but both also react to those feelings in the other with patience and support.

It also helps that these conversations around church politics and religious intent are told with plenty of fresh and entertaining jokes. There is always a lot of mileage to be had from seeing people like the Pope delightedly watching trashy TV or failing to recognise either ABBA or the Beatles, while Bergoglio’s homespun openness and willingness to talk with anyone about anything (not to mention his passion for football) throw open no end of comic possibilities from seeing this prince of the Church insist on being treated as just a regular joe.

It also gives loads of opportunities for its two stars, arguably Wales’ leading actors (both highly deserving of their Oscar nods). Hopkins, given his best material in years, is brilliant as Benedict: irascible, imposing, morally certain and firm but also playful just below the surface and a man profoundly aware of his own mistakes and failings. Hopkins delivers the lines with just the right touch of twinkle in his eye. 

He also bounces wonderfully off Pryce who is possibly at a career best as Bergoglio. A brilliant physical match for Pope Francis, Pryce’s performance captures perfectly the unaffected humility of the man, but also his intensely sharp personal reflection and the burdens of guilt, as well as the shying away from confrontation that is Bergoglio’s greatest failing. Pryce’s comic timing is impeccable, but he also carries the movie’s heart and soul with affecting skill, pulling off the difficult trick of making a good man a compelling one.

Meirelles’ film is a talky affair – and its construction is a little pat at times, like a very well assembled production line buddy movie and biopic. It never completely escapes the clichés of two-very-different-people-coming-together that is one of its heartbeats, but it does it all so well, with such grace and wit – and two such terrific performances – that it hardly matters. Another big success for Netflix.