Tag: Florence Pugh

Dune: Part 2 (2024)

Villeneuve’s triumphant sequel continues to raise the bar for science fiction films

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Timothée Chalamet (Paul ‘Muad-Dib’ Atreides), Zendaya (Chani), Rebecca Ferguson (Lady Jessica), Javier Bardem (Stilgar), Josh Brolin (Gurney Halleck), Austin Butler (Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen), Florence Pugh (Princess Irulan), Dave Bautista (Rabban Harkonnen), Christopher Walken (Emperor Shaddam IV), Léa Seydoux (Lady Margot Fenring), Souheila Yacoub (Shishakli), Stellan Skarsgård (Baron Vladimir Harkonnen), Charlotte Rampling (Gaius Helen Mohaim)

Denis Villeneuve had already taken on the near-impossible in adapting the unfilmable Dune into a smash-hit admired by both book-fans and initiates. In doing so he set himself an even greater task: how do you follow that? Dune Part 2 (and this is very much Part 2, picking up minutes after the previous film ended) deepens some of the universe building, but also veers the story off into complex, challenging directions that fly in the face of those expecting the sort of “hero will rise” narrative the first Dune seemed to promise. Dune Part 2 becomes an unsettling exploration of faith, colonialism and cultural manipulation, all wrapped up in its epic design.

Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) have escaped the clutches of their rivals House Harkonnen and it’s corrupt, sadistic leader Baron Vladimir (Stellan Skarsgård). Escaping into the deserts of Arrakis, they take shelter with the Fremen, vouched for by tribal leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem). It transpires Paul fits many of the conditions of the prophecy of the Mahdi or Lisan al Gaib, the promised messiah of the Fremen. Paul is uncomfortable with this – and the growing devotion of the likes of Stilgar – but also recognises the potential this has for marshalling the Fremen for his own revenge on the Harkonnen’s. Its further complicated by his knowledge the prophecy was embedded into their culture by the mysterious Bene Gesseri, the religious order that quietly controls much of the Empire, not to mention the hostility of Chani (Zendaya) the woman he loves, as she believes the Fremen should save themselves not rely on an outsider.

These complex ideas eventually shape a film that avoids simple good-vs-evil narratives and subtly undermines the very concept of the saviour narrative. Dune’s roots in a mix of Lord of the Rings and Lawrence of Arabia have rarely been clearer. Not least in the perfect casting of the slightly androgenous and fey Timothée Chalamet as Paul (with more than a hint of Peter O’Toole), barely knowing who he is, drawn towards and standing outside an indigenous community based on strong tribal loyalty, tradition and the grim reality of life in a hostile environment.

A large part of Dune 2 deconstructs Paul’s heroism and his (and Jessica’s) motives. When Jessica – who takes on a religious figurehead role with the Fremen – starts stage-managing events to exactly match the words of the prophecy, does that count as a fulfilment? Paul is deeply uncomfortable with positioning himself as messianic figure for an entire race, effectively weaponising their belief for his own cause. But he’s also nervous because he is also an exceptionally gifted person with powers of persuasion and prophetic insight that mark him out as special. As Paul allows himself to more-and-more accept the role he has been groomed for, how much does it corrupt him? After all, he gains absolute power over the Fremen – and we all know what that does to someone…

Paul’s messianic possibility is also spread on very fertile ground. Javier Bardem’s Stilgar represents a large portion of the Fremen population, who belief in this prophecy with a fanatical certainty. The dangers of this is subtly teased out by Villeneuve throughout the film. At first there is a Life of Brian comedy about Stilgar’s wide-eyed joy as every single event can be twisted and filtered through his naïve messiah check-list (“As is written!”) – even Paul’s denial he is the messiah is met with the response that only a messiah would be so humble! This comedy however fades as the film progresses and the militaristic demands Paul makes sees this same belief channelled into ferocious, fanatic fury that will leave a whole universe burning in its wake.

Much of Paul’s hesitancy is based on his visions of a blood-soaked jihad that will follow if he indeed “heads south” and accepts the leadership of the Fremen’s fanatical majority. The question is, of course, whether the desire for revenge – and, it becomes increasingly clear, a lust for power and control – will overcome such scruples. Part of the skill of Chalamet’s performance is that it is never easy to say precisely when your sympathy for him begins to tip into horror at how far he is willing to go (Villeneuve bookends the film with different victorious armies incinerating mountains of corpses of fallen foes), but in carefully calculated increments the Paul we end up at the end of the film is a world away from the one we encountered at the start.

Villeneuve further comments on this by the skilful re-imagining of Chadi, strongly played by Zendaya as an intelligent, determined freedom-fighter appalled at the Fremen exchanging one dogma for another. In the novel a more passive, devoted warrior-lover of Paul, in Dune Part 2 she becomes effectively his Fremen conscious, a living representation of the manipulation Paul is carrying out on these people. In her continued rejection of worship – even while she remains personally drawn to Paul – she provides a human counterpoint to Paul’s temptation to follow his father’s instructions and master “desert power” to control the worlds around them.

Deplorable and evil as the Harkonnen’s are, do Paul’s ends justify his means? And where does it stop? Dune Part 2 sees the Harkonnen’s subtly reduced in status. Dave Batista’s brooding Raban proves an incompetent manager of Arrakis. Stellan Skarsgård’s Baron is crippled by an assassination attempt and increasingly buffeted by events rather than controlling them. The film’s clearest antagonist becomes Austin Butler’s chillingly psychopathic junior Baron Feyd-Rautha, a muscle-packed bald albino, obsessed with honour and utterly ruthless towards his own subordinates. (Introduced in a stunningly shot, black-and-white gladiatorial combat scene that showcases his insane recklessness and twisted sense of honour.) But increasingly they feel like minor pawns in a game of international politics around them.

Villeneuve allows Dune’s world to expand, delving further into the cultural manipulations of the Bene Gesserit. This ancient order not only controls the Emperor – a broodingly impotent Christopher Walken – but also manipulates the bloodlines of great houses for their own twisted breeding programme, as well as inject cultures like the Fremen with perverted, controlling beliefs. While Villeneuve still carefully parses out the world-building of Dune – you could be forgiven for not understanding why the Spice on Arrakis is so damn important – it’s a film that skilfully outlines in broad strokes a whole universe of backstairs manipulation.

Among all this of course, Dune remains a design triumph. Grieg Fraser’s cinematography ensures the desert hasn’t looked this beautiful since Lawrence. The production and costume design are a triumph, as is Hans Zimmer’s imposing score. Above all, the film is brilliantly paced (wonderfully edited by Greg Walker) and superbly balanced into a mix of complex political theory and enough action and giant worm-riding to keep you more than entertained.

Dune Part 2 is a rich and worthy sequel, broadening and deepening the original, as well as challenging hero narratives. It turns Paul into an increasingly dark and manipulative figure, whose righteous anger is only a few degrees away from just anger (he’s no Luke Skywalker), who starts to see people as tools and moves swiftly from asserting Fremen rights to asserting his own rights (overloaded with different names, its striking when Paul chooses to use which names). In a film that provokes thoughts and thrills, Villeneuve’s Dune continues to do for fantasy-sci-fi what Lord of the Rings did for fantasy, creating a cinematic adaptation unlikely to be rivalled for decades.

Oppenheimer (2023)

Nolan’s masterful musing on the morality of science is both challenging and compelling

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Cillian Murphy (J Robert Oppenheimer), Emily Blunt (Kitty Oppenheimer), Matt Damon (General Leslie Groves), Robert Downey Jnr (Lewis Strauss), Florence Pugh (Jean Tatlock), Josh Hartnett (Ernest Lawrence), Casey Affleck (Colonel Boris Pash), Rami Malek (David Hill), Kenneth Branagh (Niels Bohr), Benny Safdie (Edward Teller), Dane DeHaan (General Kenneth Nichols), Jason Clarke (Roger Robb), David Krumholtz (Isidor Issac Rabi), Tom Conti (Albert Einstein), Alden Ehrenreich (Strauss’ aide), Gary Oldman (President Truman), Jefferson Hall (Haakon Chevalier)

“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. These words from The Baghavad Gita are synonymous with J Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Manhattan Project as he witnessed the destructive force of his creation, the atomic bomb. Fittingly, Nolan’s fascinating and ambitious film opens with a reference to Oppenheimer as Prometheus: the man punished for all time for stealing fire from the Gods. Oppenheimer uses everything from thriller to courtroom drama, to explore the moral responsibilities of science: if we can do a thing, does it follow that we must?

J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is a Renaissance man and leading theoretical physicist who dabbled more than a little in left-wing politics. The woman he loves, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), is a die-hard communist, the woman he marries Kitty (Emily Blunt) is a former party member, his closest friends are all members. Associations like these will later haunt him after he is approached by General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) to use his organisational skills, political savvy and charisma to run the WW2 nuclear programme where maverick scientists work hand-in-hand with the army. Despite his position, Oppenheimer remains untrusted by many. In the aftermath of the war, these suspicions will be used by his opponents, among them Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jnr) ex-head of the Atomic Energy Committee, to bring about his downfall as Oppenheimer preaches disarmament.

Much like Dunkirk, Oppenheimer is told in two timelines, intersecting with scenes replayed from different perspectives in subtly different ways. In “Fission” we see Oppenheimer, effectively on trial in 1954 for his security clearance, recount his life story, chronological flashbacks taking us through the development of the bomb. In “Fusion”, shot in gorgeous black and white, we follow the 1959 senate hearings to confirm Strauss in a cabinet post, and see his reminiscences of Oppenheimer’s post-war struggles to control the monster he has unleashed.

Oppenheimer is a brilliantly made, cinematically adventurous film: you would, of course, expect nothing less from a distinctive talent like Nolan. Brilliantly intercutting multiple timelines, it’s a film that is as much an experience as a story. This is a behemoth, filled with moments of flair and breath-taking use of sound and vision to affect mood. In particular, the film’s oppressive sound design bears down on the viewer like the pressure of the bomb itself. This means moments when we are released from its grip carry real impact. As Oppenheimer – already plagued with doubt – triumphantly announces the successful use of the bomb, the war-like celebratory pounding of scientists’ feet disappears from the soundtrack leaving Oppenheimer’s words echoing impotently around the room.

The pounding score and epic, sweeping camerawork (even more striking, since so much of the film takes place in small rooms filled with conversation) help Nolan to build up Oppenheimer’s mythic status and simultaneously strip him bare. Literally so at one point as, when questioned on his sex life in his hearing, Oppenheimer is seen naked in the room (as exposed as he must be feeling) answering questions with a naked Jean Tatlock astride him, staring into his wife’s eyes.

Oppenheimer labours, with the best intentions, to create a weapon before the Nazis. In its middle act, Nolan’s film focuses on the propulsive excitement of creation. The thrill of obstacles being overcome and solutions being found. The joy of a diverse team coming together for a single goal. We find ourselves longing for problems to be overcome, swept up in the desire for the endgame, as anxious as the scientists when it looks like rain will prevent the vital first Trinity test of the bomb.

Oppenheimer feels the same. Powerfully, intelligently and magnetically played by Cillian Murphy, this is a man who is a host of flaws crammed with impossible genius. A charismatic room leader, who is awkward in personal interactions. A charmer who rudely fails to remember his brother’s girlfriend’s name at a party. An inspiring leader who alienates people with ease. Murphy captures every inch of Oppenheimer’s staggering intellect and delight in intellectual problems, just as he also embodies the man’s arrogance and crushing self-belief.

So, it’s as crushing to him as it is terrifying to us, when the bomb explodes and the realisation hits us. Nolan’s sensory experience of a film fades down to silence as Nolan lets the camera float across the all-consuming fire of the silent explosion (the noise only comes when the shockwave hits) and suddenly the chilling implication of this terrible weapon becomes clear. This is a device that will kill millions. Oppenheimer knows it: he slowly shrivels into haunted guilt, Murphy seeming to shrink into himself as he finally understands what he has done.

Images of nuclear destruction both obvious (ashen bodies and nuclear flashes) and subtle (the out-of-focus vibration of background around Oppenheimer, as if sensing an approach shockwave) will haunt him and us for the rest of the movie. While many scientists – foremost among them Benny Safdie’s bull-headed Edward Teller and Josh Hartnett’s WASPish but decent Ernest Lawrence – feel little guilt. But Oppenheimer, and we, can no longer avoid questions of moral responsibility raised by those such as Niels Bohr (a quietly effective Kenneth Branagh).

Are there some discoveries better not made? Because once the genie is out of the bottle, it cannot be stuffed back in again. In this new world every world power must always have more. More bombs, bigger bombs, better bombs. And it explains why, like Prometheus, Oppenheimer must be punished. The tool of his punishment being his communist sympathies, embodied in his yearning attraction to Jean Tatlock (an under-used Florence Pugh). Nolan’s film is very strong on the terrifying paranoia of the secret state, where every word or association can be collected into a terrible portfolio of witnesses you cannot question, evidence you cannot see, testimony you cannot hear.

“Why don’t you fight” cries his wife Kitty, played with a dynamic, intelligent forcefulness by Emily Blunt. I could have done with a third act built more around Blunt’s starkly honest betrayal of a woman ill-suited to being a wife and mother, trapped in a world where that is all women can achieve (and which also trimmed a few witnesses from Oppenheimer’s trial). Why doesn’t Oppenheimer fight? Nolan has his theories, carefully seeded and confidently revealed.

Oppenheimer’s post-war clashes cover much of “Fusion”, anchored by a superbly under-playing Robert Downey Jnr (his finest work since Chaplin) as the outwardly avuncular, but inwardly insecure and bitter Strauss, who sees Oppenheimer as the embodiment of all the elitists who turned their noses up at him (no matter that Oppenheimer himself is an outsider, in a world of science run by WASPish types like Lawrence). Nolan’s film explores how morality is forgotten in an environment so rife with paranoia that the slightest expression of doubt is seen as treason.

Nolan’s film needs its vast runtime to keep as many balls in the air as it tries to. It’s probably a few too many balls. I would have loved more on Oppenheimer’s outsider status, as a Jew in American science (its not mentioned that the J stands for Julius, despite his claims it stands for nothing). Similarly, I would have welcomed more time to explore Oppenheimer’s complicated emotional life, in particular the fascinatingly complex relationship of some love, a fair amount of mutual respect and a large measure of mutual convenience with his wife Kitty.

But the film’s chilling musing on the horrors science can accidentally unleash while focused on progress is superbly explored and leaves a lasting impact. It’s a feeling that continues to be sharply relevant while we struggle with the implications of AI. Was there a need for the bomb? Perhaps there was. Were we ready for the bomb? No. And it is the failure of anyone, including Oppenheimer, to even consider this until it was too late that is the coldest warning in Nolan’s epic film.

Lady Macbeth (2016)

Florence Pugh is either a feminist icon or a ruthless monster in this Gothic drama

Director: William Oldroyd

Cast: Florence Pugh (Katherine Lester), Cosmo Jarvis (Sebastian), Naomi Ackie (Anna), Christopher Fairbank (Boris Lester), Paul Hilton (Alexander Lester), Golda Rosheuvel (Agnes), Anton Palmer (Teddy)

On a rural estate in Northumberland in 1865, Katherine (Florence Pugh) enters a loveless marriage with Alexander (Paul Hilton), son of landowner Boris (Christopher Fairbank). The marriage is a disaster, with the couple incompatible and Katherine bored and trapped with no friends or allies. When Alexander and Boris travel for business, she finally gets the chance to explore her surroundings and enters into a passionate sexual relationship with estate worker Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis). When Boris – but not Alexander – returns, Katherine begins a chain of events that will see her commit a series of increasingly shocking crimes to hold onto the things she wants.

Oldroyd’s film is adapted by Alice Birch from a Russian short story, and is told with an icy, observatory coldness that doesn’t flinch from the increasingly sociopathic ruthlessness of its lead character. The film at first seems like it will set out a feminist fable, of a trophy wife struggling against the neglect and imprisonment of forced marriage. But, as it progresses, any pretence that Katherine is a feminist hero is stripped away: she is modern only in the most dreadful sense – a woman who will willingly commit almost any act of ruthlessness to safeguard her interests.

Playing Katherine, the film is blessed with a star-making turn from Florence Pugh. Only 19, Pugh gives a performance of such stunning depth and intelligence from a young actress that possibly hasn’t been seen since Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures. She’s a master of outward stillness and inscrutability, while always communicating the raging whirlpool of emotions underneath the surface. She’s fiercely intelligent, viciously ruthless, frequently observes other characters silently and can twist her face into a mocking defiance. Pugh also communicates the desperate emotional need for connection that motivates this woman, her willingness to go to such shocking lengths motivated by that yearning for a love that she has never known.

Oldroyd is careful not to present her a Gothic monster (would certainly be easy to do so!). The film is careful to outline how unwanted and ill-treated she is by Alexander and his father. Boris (a bullying Christopher Fairbank) ignores and talks down to this person-as-a-piece-of-property, basically just an unlooked-for freebie with some land, who is failing to get on with the production of an heir. Alexander (Paul Hilton, superbly weak and dripping with contemptuous bitterness) has no interest in his wife, his sexual interest restricted to ordering her to strip and face the wall while he pleasures himself. Neither of these characters ever have anything like a conversation with her, instead speaking to her like a dog or malfunctioning appliance.

So, you can see why she is so drawn to the passion of Sebastian – and also, perhaps, why she might find this cocky but not-exactly-sharpest-tool man an attractive chance for her to wear the trousers for once. Their couplings have a sexual urgency and passion to them that is lacking for anything else in the film. But we never see them as emotional or intellectual equals. There is no scene of romance, bonding or conversational or unsexual emotional connection with them. Katherine becomes obsessed with Sebastian – but it seems to be at least as much an obsession with the sex and the sense of control he brings her, as much as it is Sebastian himself.

As Sebastian, Cosmo Jarvis is initial bluster and wide-boy charm that strips away to reveal a man far more timid, scared and increasingly out-of-his-depth with what he’s got caught up in. For all his Lady Chatterley’s Lover physicality, Jarvis has a real vulnerability in his eyes and a certain little-boy lost quality. His panic and shock as event balloon become increasingly tragic.

Equally affecting is the terror of Naomi Ackie’s maid, torn between different sides. Like Pugh, Ackie is superb at suggesting emotional torment under a still surface and her character Anna frequently finds herself the mute observer of increasingly dangerous events, unable to influence them.

The film is shot with a coolness that at times makes it hard to connect with emotionally. In many ways this is a horror film, with a creeping intimidation, scoreless backdrop and a chilly aesthetic of empty rooms and muted colours. There are some bravura scenes: a life-changing breakfast scene is shot with a terrifying but suggestive stillness, just as it is played by Pugh with a chilling unreadability. Oldroyd’s film masterfully uses a number of simple and unflashy camera set-ups that build up to an overwhelming feeling of dread.

And some of this stuff is hard to watch. Two killings are shown in disturbing detail, enough to haunt your dreams. But the film wisely just presents the facts and avoids judgement – however implied that might be. It also makes for an intriguing condemnation of avarice – everyone in the film seems to be longing for something, but none of them find that struggle was worth it. And at its centre is a intriguingly unknowable and unreadable woman, who only becomes more alarming the more we find out about her.

Lady Macbeth is sometimes a little cold and distant for its own good. But its hauntingly grim and has a stunning, career-making performance from Florence Pugh. Filmed with creeping dread, it’s a cold, disturbing film that will linger with you.

Black Widow (2021)

Scarlett Johansson crashes through a film that seems to exist by contractual obligation, Black Widow

Director: Cate Shortland

Cast: Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), David Harbour (Alexei Shostakov), O-T Fagbenle (Rick Mason), Olga Kurylenko (Antonia Dreykov), William Hurt (Thaddeus Ross), Ray Winstone (General Dreykov), Rachel Weisz (Melina Vostokoff)

After the events of Captain America: Civil War, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is on the run, when she receives a mysterious parcel from her “sister” – or rather the young girl she spent a few years with as a “family” of Russian agents undercover in America in the 1980s – Yelena Beloba (Florence Pugh). The parcel contains a drug that can be used to break the mind-control that nasty General Dreykov (Ray Winstone) has over his army of Widows: young girls like Natasha and Yelena, forced to become assassins in a torture chamber/training room called The Red Room. Natasha and Yelena team up to free the other assassins, but they will need the help of their “parents”, Russian super-soldier Shostakov (David Harbour) and genius inventor Melina (Rachel Weisz).

As the credits rolled on this formulaic slice of Marvel adventurism, I couldn’t for the life of me work out why it even existed in the first place. For a film centred around Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow character, I expected to come out of this epic with some new understanding of her character. Not only do we not learn anything about her at all, we get no additional insight into what makes her tick, no deeper look into her character. We learn nothing about her that we don’t know already: and the film isn’t even smart or profound enough to reflect on the fact that we all know that the character died in the last film we saw her in. Does it exist solely so Marvel can say “Look we made a film about the only female Avenger, so shut up already!”

The film is stuck between being a greatest hits celebration of Johansson’s work elsewhere and providing as much focus as possible for Florence Pugh to take up the mantle in future films. In fact, the focus is so much on Pugh – who is terrific and gets all the best lines – that Johansson becomes a bit of a straight-man in her own damn movie. It’s Black Widow who has to say all the unhip, dull things (“We can’t steal that car!”) while her sister snipes, swears and plays devil-may-care with the consequences. For what should be her moment in the sun, Johansson gets rather short-changed here. But then perhaps she didn’t really care – it certainly never feels that she had anything she was determined to say or do here, other than cash a huge cheque.

The film is framed around a back story of villainy involving the nasty Dollshouse-style assassin school that both sisters were forced to attend, here revealed to still be in operation with a team of brainwashed female assassins. At the centre, like a creepy Charlie with brain-washed Angels, is General Dreykov, played by a barely-even-trying Ray Winstone (his accent is laughably atrocious). Dreykov is such a peripheral figure in the film that he never feels like either a threat or a dark manipulative force and his “plan” is such an after-thought, Winstone has to hurriedly state it for the first time in a final act monologue.

The film is supposed to be about misogyny, and how Dreykov has left a poisonous legacy of abuse of young women for his own ends. This includes forcing his daughter (a thankless mute role under a helmet for Olga Kurylenko) into a killer robber-suit as the sort of uber-assassin. Natasha is plagued with guilt about harming this character in the past – a guilt that would have way more impact on the viewer if we had seen even one bloody scene of them together to establish a relationship. How much more interesting, too, would the film have been if we had seen Kurylenko’s character as the new head of this abusive ring of spies, having taken up her father’s mantle and absorbing his poisonous world view. But no, such nuances are beyond this film.

There are a few moments of emotion and comedy gained from Natasha’s fake family – the parents who are not her parents, the sister who is not her sister. This odd group reunion makes for some laughs, but its noticeable that the main emotional impact is on Pugh’s younger, less settled character rather than the confident, assured Natasha. It’s another major flaw in the film: at the end of the day, I can’t imagine this had any real impact on the character at all. Does Natasha really change her view of herself at the end? No: she talks the talk about having “a new family” but her level of connection with them (certainly with her parents) doesn’t seem to go much beyond patient affection. Again, the real emotional impact is on Pugh’s character who has finally found something to base her life on: this would have worked so much better as an origins story.

Instead, this seems to exist solely to answer a trivia question I’m not sure anyone was asking: “What did Black Widow do in between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War?” If your life really was lacking without the answer to that, this is the film for you. Otherwise, there is little at all to make any of this stand out from any of the other 20+ Marvel films. Its action scenes are cookie-cutter (naturally everywhere Natasha goes, the place is destroyed), the emotional beats are completely unrevealing, the baddie so forgettable you might even miss it when he dies, and we get a few actors (Harbour and Weisz) coasting on a couple of decent lines and bit of comic business. Apart from anything involving Florence Pugh, this film is totally and utterly forgettable.

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.

The Falling (2014)

Florence Pugh and Maisie Williams deal with tedious coming-of-age antics in The Falling

Director: Carol Morley

Cast: Maisie Williams (Lydia Lamont), Maxine Peake (Eileen Lamb), Monica Dolan (Miss Alvaro), Greta Scacchi (Miss Mantel), Mathew Baynton (Mr Hopkins), Florence Pugh (Abigail Mortimer), Joe Cole (Kenneth Lamont), Lauren McCrostie (Gwen)

Any film set in an all-girls school that succumbs to hysteria, with ominous goings-on that might be supernatural or might all be allegories for coming of age and emerging sexuality, is inevitably going to get compared with Picnic at Hanging Rock. But few films seem to be so desperate to be that film as The Falling does.

Set in an all-girls school in 1969, at the cusp of the sexual revolution that will soon engulf the whole country, Lydia Lamont (Maisie Williams) and her elder brother Kenneth (Joe Cole) are both obsessed with Lydia’s charismatic classmate Abigail Mortimer (Florence Pugh) – feelings of emotional and sexual dependency that Abigail knowingly encourages and flirts with. After Abigail’s sudden death connected to her pregnancy, Lydia becomes increasingly disruptive at the school and finally becomes “patient zero” in an epidemic of fainting that afflicts the school.

Based on a true story, you can tell that this film is keen to conjure up some sort of deep-rooted mystery at the heart of the girls’ actions, questioning whether they were truly in control of their own actions at this time or under the influence of something else. Is this linked directly to the tragic fate of Abigail – is she in some way possessing the girls, driving them towards this fainting? Or is the fainting just a sort of acting out, as Lydia tries to get over her grief at the loss of her friend?

Frankly, who really cares? It’s pretty hard to get invested in a film that is working so hard to be meaningful that it overshoots the mark and just becomes tiresome. Yeah I get it, teenage relationships can have this unhealthy intensity to them. They can spin out into self-destructive elements. And maybe, if the film had focused more on that rather than trying to suggest some unsettling mystery it might have got further. But with every shot of the British countryside around the school, or the lingering shots on the girls writhing on the floor, or the unsettled terror of the teachers, you feel the film’s attempt to invest these events with meaning.

What you actually end up feeling, throughout this overlong and puffed up film, is impatience at the indulgence of these children. Far from a mystery, the fainting appears to be a tiresome, attention-seeking effort from young girls unable to express and process emotionally the things that have happened to them. There isn’t a single element of the film that makes you seriously consider some ghostly or psychical explanation for the events – they seem, clearly and throughout, to be manufactured by the girls involved. It’s hard to watch it without unsympathetically suspecting that if the adults around them stopped indulging all this nonsense, they’d miraculously recover soon enough. It’s possible to speculate over whether the girls are doing it deliberately or if this is the work of their overwrought subconscious – but while that could form a good premise for a film interested in group psychology, this film seems more interested in pretentious shots of trees.

As if realising halfway through that it’s not come up with anything compelling yet, the film hastily throws in a poorly developed incest plotline, which is unsettling, illogical, and springs from nowhere. Not content with that, it then shoe-horns a rape into the backstory of a character late on, in a way that is clearly meant to be a dark reveal, but is in fact a really clumsy “obviously this caused all the problems” solution to the questions of the film. The character’s mental health problems and inability to bond with her closest family could have made for a complex and challenging character (and she’s certainly played by an actor who could’ve handled that material). Instead, rape is casually chucked in as a glib explanation for “oh and this is why she’s troubled – ta-da”. It’s cheap and lazy. But then that is on a par with all the sexual awakening content of the film, which is clumsy, clunky and often misguided. It wants to suggest an unsettling fascination with sex, and tie that in with dangerous, subversive ideas. Instead, it just ends up looking like standard teenage experimentation, filmed with a certain amount of style.

This is not to say the film is badly made as such. It looks good and it’s put together well. It’s just trying way too hard. The acting is very good. Maisie Williams is never anything less than watchable as Lydia, and creates a well-drawn character as a girl who goes from easily-led hero worshipper to the troubled centre point of disruption at the school. Florence Pugh is also a revelation as Abigail – a charismatic presence that you instantly believe would be obsessed over by everyone who knows her. Joe Cole is also very good as the creepy, sexually exploitative brother. There are some good performances from the adults, not least Maxine Peake as Lydia’s nervous, agoraphobic mother.

But none of this cancels out the laboured pretension of the rest of the film, which always wants to let you know how clever it is, and how much it wants you to question the impact of all that dark sexual awakening. Instead, for all the sturm und drang,it ends up looking rather like a collection of silly girls who are acting out. The idea that obsession with Abigail draws rebellious and transgressive feelings from Lydia seems painfully obvious and unoriginal, and the flirtation with incest, rather than invested with meaning, instead feels like a film straining to shock.

The Falling wants to be a great cult classic. Neither of those words can be applied. It’s a well-made but empty spectacle, living in the shadow of other much better films. For all the skill of Maisie Williams and Florence Pugh, it misses the greater depth it is aiming for and settles for being a rather shrill would-be ghost story and a plodding attempt at social commentary.

Outlaw King (2018)

Chris Pine leads Scottish rebellion in Netflix’s Outlaw King

Director: David Mackenzie

Cast: Chris Pine (Robert the Bruce), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (James Douglas), Florence Pugh (Elizabeth de Burgh), Stephen Dillane (Edward I), Billy Howle (Edward II), Tony Curran (Angus Macdonald), Sam Spruell (Aymer de Valence), Lorne Macfadyen (Neil Bruce), Alastair Mackenzie (Lord Atholl), James Cosmo (Robert de Bruce), Callan Mulvey (John Comyn)

In 1995 the world went crazy for Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, which turned William Wallace from a largely forgotten historical rebel into a martyr for independence. Outlaw King is an almost spiritual sequel that follows the life of Robert the Bruce, the eventual winner of Scottish independence. It picks up almost immediately from the death of Wallace and follows the struggle of the Bruce to take the throne. But I’d be surprised if it has the same impact.

Outlaw King is a fairly decent pick-up of events, and it tries to get a balance between drama and history – one it more or less manages until the final act. In the aftermath of a failed Scottish rebellion, Robert the Bruce has the advantage of his father (James Cosmo) being an old friend of Edward I (Stephen Dillane). After renewing his oath of loyalty to Edward, Robert is given land, influence and a marriage to wealthy noblewoman Elizabeth de Burgh (Florence Pugh). However, after his father dies regretting the pact and William Wallace is brutally executed by the English, Robert uses the public outrage as a boost to putting together his own claim to the Scottish throne. Murdering his chief rival in a church, he raises the flag of rebellion against the English and leads an army to take back Scotland. But things swiftly go wrong, and Bruce finds himself on the run and declared a rebel.

Outlaw King gets a lot right. It’s impressively filmed and looks fantastic. The photography by Barry Ackroyd is wonderful, in particular the use of candles for interior scenes which bring a brilliant golden glow to the action. Mackenzie is an ambitious and imaginative director, and he pushes himself to the limit here. The opening nine minutes of the film is one long continuous shot that takes in debate, a sword fight, court room intrigue and the firing of the largest trebuchet you are going to see outside of Warwick Castle. With the camera swaying and bobbing around in this sequence you have to admire the chutzpah – even if I can see that some viewers (my wife included!) might think it showing off.

Mackenzie gets equal flourish out of the film’s many combat scenes. There is, to tell the truth, probably one too many of these bloody melees, but the camera gets a real sense of the blood, mud and gore that medieval battle involved. With brilliant use of hand-held immersive camerawork, each of these battles really gives you a sense of bloo-spattered chaos. Sometimes things are hard to follow – at least one death in combat is met with fury, but I’m not entirely sure who that guy even was (and it’s never mentioned again). But you’ve got to admire the skill of the film-making.

It’s the story itself where the film sometimes falls a bit flat. It does get a really good sense of the medieval, I will certainly give it that. The design and attitudes of the film are pretty perfect, and the stakes that everyone is clashing for feel very real. But the film encounters problems more and more as the film drifts into fiction and away from history. While the realpolitik of Bruce’s move to have himself declared king has a ruthlessness that feels real, the film’s attempt to build a personal rivalry between Bruce and the future Edward II feels forced from the start. By the time the film’s conclusion attempts to boil the entire campaign for Scottish independence into a mano-a-mano clash between the two on the battlefield (that of course never actually happened) you start to feel it’s getting very silly. Not least as figures who in real life would be invaluable bargaining chips are allowed to walk free from the battle field, to demonstrate the moral superiority of our heroes.

It’s a part of the general drift of the storyline that gets a little less compelling the longer it goes on. Maybe this is because once Bruce has his initial army destroyed and his first campaign to grasp power defeated, the story of him being on the run and carrying out guerrilla hits never feels fresh and original. We’ve seen it before – and the way the film generally avoids developing the supporting characters fully often means your focus starts to shift. After a really strong start, the film becomes more and more generic, Bruce himself becomes more and more a perfect leader rather than the almost Machiavellian character he started as, and the focus turns more and more into making it a conventional goodie-vs-baddie clash. It becomes something more forgettable, more like something you’ve seen before, and turns a campaign that took almost ten years into a rushed “and then they won this battle and everything was fine” ending.

There are many strong moments in there though, not least the generally decent performances from the cast. Chris Pine as Robert the Bruce sounds like the sort of casting decision made in hell, but he actually handles himself very well. His accent is very good, he captures a lot of the complexity of Bruce as a man who wants to be good but must sometimes be ruthless, and he brings a large dollop of charisma to the role so that you never really find yourself questioning whether he is a man others would follow. He doesn’t set the world alight, but does a good job.

The film’s stand-out turn however comes from Florence Pugh, who brings her customary intelligence and charisma to the complex part of the Bruce’s wife. At first positioned into an arranged marriage, she quickly proves both her independence and value, but also her strength of character. Far from being just a hostage – the role history largely assigned her – Pugh’s performance always makes her a character with agency, a woman determined enough to be loyal to the end once she has made her choices. There are other decent performances as well, in particular from Stephen Dillane as an authoritarian hard-ass Edward I, while Billy Howle gets to a play an Edward II who feels true (the film avoids references to his homosexuality, but does allow him to be the fearsome warrior – if hopeless general – he was, as opposed to the homophobic cartoon he was in Braveheart).

Outlaw King,though, just isn’t quite good enough. It’s fine for a decent watch on a Saturday night. In fact Netflix is just about its perfect platform: if you stumbled across this while scrolling through the library, and you were in the mood to click on it, you wouldn’t be disappointed. But even though it’s visually impressive and enjoyable, it’s also increasingly predictable and even a little bit empty. It doesn’t quite come to life as much as it should and eventually settles for being something quite traditional.