Tag: Julia Ormond

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Ageing, romance and sentiment in Fincher’s handsome shaggy dog story

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Brad Pitt (Benjamin Button), Cate Blanchett (Daisy Fuller), Taraji P Henson (Queenie), Julia Ormond (Caroline Button), Jason Flemyng (Thomas Button), Elias Koteas (Monsieur Gateau), Tilda Swinton (Elizabeth Abbott), Mahershala Ali (Tizzy Weathers), Jared Harris (Captain Mike Clark)

As the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 strikes, a baby boy is born. A baby boy unlike any other, with the appearance and illnesses of a very old man. Discarded by his horrified father (Jason Flemyng), the boy is adopted by Queenie (Taraji P Henson), caretaker of a nursing home. There it becomes clear he is growing backwards: the older he gets, the younger he appears. Young Benjamin will eventually grow into Brad Pitt and spend his life watching those around him grow ever older as he grows ever younger. Most joyful, and painful, of all being his childhood friend Daisy (Cate Blanchett), the woman he will love his whole life.

Fincher’s film is a strange beast. A huge technical triumph, that uses cutting edge special effects and astonishing make-up to age – in both directions – Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett throughout the course of the film (both taken from extreme old age to face-lifted youth), it’s also a whimsical shaggy dog story with elements of a fairy tale that does very little with its astonishing concept other than pepper the script with easily digestible homilies about the purity of the simple life, as if screenwriter Eric Roth was still gorging on the same box of chocolates from which he plucked Forrest Gump.

TCCoBB has a lot going for it: you can see why it was coated with technical Oscars. The ageing and deageing special effects are skilfully and even subtly done, the recreation of a host of periods – from the 1910s to the 1990s and beyond – flawlessly detailed. Claudio Miranda’s photography uses a host of film stocks – from sepia, to scratchy home movie footage style, to luscious technicolour beauty – to reflect time and era constantly. The assemblage of the film has been invested with huge care and attention and, despite its great length, Fincher cuts together (with Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall) an episodic film that manages to keep its momentum and drive going.

Also, it’s a far less vomit-inducing spectacle than the manipulative stylings that coat Forrest Gump. This is in part to Brad Pitt’s restrained and contemplative performance in the lead role: Pitt underplays with surprising effectiveness, capturing Benjamin’s “come what may” attitude and eagerness to go with the flow of the opportunities life offers him. He delivers the narration with an authority just the right side of portentous (for all his rather flat, uninteresting voice) and skilfully manages to invest his body with a physicality quite contrary to his physical appearance (his old body moves with a young man’s casualness, while his younger form carries a slightly world-weary hesitancy).

Benjamin’s mantra becomes one of living your life just as suits you best, not as others expect you to and never worrying about leaving it too late to take chances or make changes. Or at least something like that. To be honest, the weakest part by far of TCCoBB is the lightness and breeziness of its thematic impact. I’ve seen this film three times and, other than a slightly charming shaggy dog story, I’m not quite sure what point it is trying to make – other than straining for a star-cross’d romantic sadness.

This feels like a missed opportunity because there is so much that could be explored here. The film is a nearly unique opportunity to explore how much age – either physical or mental – defines us. A chance to see how our perceptions of a person are shaped as much by what they look like or how they sound, as by who they are. What sort of different perspective on humanity might Benjamin have? How might those around him evaluate, their own lives as they see this him getting younger?

Questions such as these are not touched, the film settling for Benjamin’s whimsical, first-do-no-harm philosophy crossed with a sort of saintly non-interference. The closest it gets to dealing with this is in Benjamin’s friendship and later relationship with Daisy. Old/young Benjamin is told off by Daisy’s grandmother for being a dirty old man, when they first met as children (or old man in his case). Later their lives will drift together and apart, until they form a relationship when both are “the same age” physically. But the film shirks really exploring the implications of this – and outright flees the idea of Benjamin as an increasingly younger man in a romantic relationship with an increasingly older Daisy.

Instead, it settles all too often for easy lessons, comforting parables and charming little vignettes. Benjamin grows up cared for by his adopted mother Queenie (an engaging, if straight forward, performance by Taraji P Henson) – but in the sort of 1920s New Orleans where a racial epithet is never even whispered. He travels the world with Jared Harris’ (rather good) salty sea-dog, falling in love briefly with Tilda Swinton’s lonely champion swimmer turned society wife. He reconnects happily with his father (after all it’s much easier to live a life of free choice if you are the heir to a massive button factory empire). Idyllic 1960s love hits Daisy and Benjamin – a brief shot of a cruise missile taking off is the only reference to those troubled times we see.

It’s all very easy, romantically toned, sweet and easily digestible. Even writing it down highlights how these are charming, eccentrically tinged, vignettes. All events and experiences come together with a vague “lessons learned” impact, as old Benjamin regresses into a teenager, a child and then an infant. But it could have been so much more. A real study of what makes us human, a real look at how events and perspectives define us. It isn’t. Heck, other than watching Pitt travel handsomely around the world on a motorbike in a late montage, we don’t really get much of a sense of how being young/old may impact him.

Which isn’t to say it’s not enjoyable. It all proceeds with a great deal of charm and love, much of which has clearly been invested in every inch of its making. The acting from (and chemistry between) Pitt and Blanchett is very effective. But it feels like a slightly missed opportunity, a film that settles for being a warm, reassuring cuddle when it could have sat you down and helped you understand your life. For all its slight air of importance, it’s a crowd-pleasing, if slightly sentimental, film.

My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Michelle Williams navigates the world of fame as Marilyn Monroe, escorted by Eddie Redmayne

Director: Simon Curtis

Cast: Michelle Williams (Marilyn Monroe), Eddie Redmayne (Colin Clark), Kenneth Branagh (Laurence Olivier), Judi Dench (Sybil Thorndike), Emma Watson (Lucy), Dominic Cooper (Milton H. Greene), Derek Jacobi (Owen Morshead), Dougray Scott (Arthur Miller), Toby Jones (Arthur P Jacobs), Julia Ormond (Vivien Leigh), Zoë Wanamaker (Paula Strasberg), Michael Kitchen (Hugh Perceval), Philip Jackson (Roger Smith), Simon Russell Beale (Cotes-Preedy), Robert Portal (David Orton), Jim Carter (Barry), Richard Clifford (Richard Wattis), Gerard Horan (Trevor)

In 1956 Laurence Olivier was the greatest actor in the world; Marilyn Monroe was the biggest star (and sex-symbol) in the world. Surely when they came together to make a movie, it would be cinema gold. It wasn’t. Olivier directed and starred with Monroe in The Prince and the Showgirl, an almost impossibly slight puff piece, partly assembled (so rumour goes) so Olivier could sleep with Monroe. But it turned out Monroe’s fragile psyche and Stanislavkian approach to acting was incompatible with Olivier’s well-honed craft. The two did not get on.

Simon Curtis’ gentle, at times charming, but basically very lightweight film follows the making of the film through the eyes of Colin Clark. Clark, son of the famous art critic Kenneth Clark, was a naïve, romantic young man keen for a career in the movies through his father’s contacts. Hired by Olivier’s production company, Clark is tasked to take care of Monroe throughout the film. He becomes increasingly fascinated and infatuated with her as they spend more and more time together.

The film is based on Clark’s diaries, and he is played by Eddie Redmayne at his most fresh-faced. The problem with Clark is that, to be honest, rather than a young man on a journey of self-discovery, he comes across a little like a social-climbing creep and borderline stalker. Clark recounts a short-lived friendship that obviously had huge importance to him – but the film doesn’t want to deal with the fact it probably meant virtually nothing to Monroe, beyond some company during a lonely time.

It’s not helped by the fact Clark comes across slightly like a pushy groupie, the self-proclaimed guardian of Monroe’s needs – qualifications barely justified by his actions. The film wants us to think he got closer to the magic of celebrity than anyone, but he feels like a stranger with his nose a little closer to the portcullis. Quite frankly, Colin is the least interesting character in his own story, and Redmayne fails to really give him much depth for us to engage with. Instead he remains a slightly unsettling inverted snob, manipulated by Monroe. The film, you feel, just doesn’t get this. At the end someone tells Colin he is “standing taller” than when he first met him (the implication being the relationship has made a man of him – as if spending a bit of downtime with a celebrity was the only route to emotional maturity). But rather than being part of a sweet star-crossed romance, Colin feels like someone creepily attaching himself to someone vulnerable.

However, Michelle Williams is very good as Marilyn, capturing a real sense of her emptiness and insecurity. She perfectly captures Monroe’s physicality and vocal mannerisms. She is very good at capturing Monroe’s sense of permanent performance, of her glamour, kindness and innocence, mixed with her maddening vulnerability and (inadvertent?) selfishness. It’s a fine performance – better than the film deserves.

Because the film is afraid of remotely criticising Monroe at all – or really engaging with the deep psychological reasons for her depression, or addressing the possibility that part of her appeal was her slight blankness that any desires could be projected onto. Instead, the film suggests, she’s sad because men just use her. Apart from Colin of course. His kissing, skinny-dipping and sharing a bed with her are entirely unmotivated by any lustful yearnings.

The film is in love with Monroe, presenting her just as Colin saw her – perfection. In fact, just as Dougray Scott’s put-upon Arthur Miller says, she was probably exhausting and all-consuming. She certainly sucks the naïve Colin into her orbit, in a way he (or the film) hardly notices or understands. It wants us to think of this as a romance – in fact, Monroe’s fragility created a neediness that meant she didn’t feel she needed to consider other people, so overwhelmingly concerned was she with her own brittleness. The film essentially believes she was a star, so is basically allowed to do what she wants. The fact that she did so with an air of gentle vulnerability means the film gives everything she does a pass.

So it’s rather hard not to sympathise with Olivier’s growing frustration with Monroe’s unreliability. Kenneth Branagh triumphs as Olivier, surely the role he was born to play: very funny, but also with a patrician charm and all-consuming arrogance. Branagh taps into Olivier’s vulnerability, his sense that he may not be able to communicate his acting strength into movie stardom, that he is yesterday’s man. For all her difficulty, Monroe had that “star quality” that makes her the centre of your attention. I’d argue Olivier almost certainly had the same – but the film is so in love with Monroe, it needs to slightly bring Olivier down. Branagh, however, is so good that he constantly punctures the film’s attempt to force Olivier into a less sympathetic role than the one it indulges Monroe with.

My Week with Marilynis far from terrible – it’s just a rather empty film. It has a terrific cast with these British star actors all offering fine pen portraits of assorted actors, producers and agents. The film however is slight, and so in love with its fairy-tale elements, it doesn’t notice that Clark’s story is slightly more creepy and certainly a lot more emotionally empty than the film wants it to be. It wants to take us behind the curtain of a 20^th-century icon – instead it accidentally shows how impenetrable their screens are, and how easy it is for ordinary people to persuade themselves that the most fleeting of contacts was something special.

First Knight (1995)

Casting choices only Hollywood producers could make #473: Richard Gere IS Lancelot du Lac

Director: Jerry Zucker

Cast: Sean Connery (King Arthur), Richard Gere (Lancelot), Julia Ormond (Guinevere), Ben Cross (Prince Malagant), John Gielgud (oswald), Liam Cunningham (Sir Agravaine), Christopher Villiers (Sir Kay), Valentine Pelka (Sir Patrise), Colin McCormack (Sir Mador), Alexis Denisof (Sir Gaheris), Ralph Ineson (Ralf), Stuart Bunce (Peter)

First Knight continues a proud tradition of Hollywood adaptations of British legends, with full-blown action and romance mixed with an anachronistic modern-ish vibe which clashes completely with the design of the rest of the film. Think anything from Ivanhoe to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. At heart these films are ridiculous, but to be a success they need to embrace this and create something with a bit of heart. First Knight is almost wholly absurd from start to finish – but it’s still remarkably good fun. Even when you laugh at the bizarre sequences that pepper the film, it’s still somehow entertaining. It doesn’t take itself seriously – so I feel people who lambast it are missing the point.

Anyway, it retreads the story of King Arthur (Sean Connery) with a modern mix. Here Arthur is an old man, marrying Guinevere (Julia Ormond) to seal a truce between Camelot and Guinevere’s home of Lyonesse. While being escorted to Camelot, an attempt is made by the villainous Malagant (Ben Cross) to kidnap Guinevere, but she is saved by charismatic chancer and expert swordsman Lancelot (Richard Gere). Returning to Camelot, she marries Arthur while Lancelot finds himself inducted into the Knights of Camelot. But their adventure together has led to a deep romantic bond between Lancelot and Guinevere – one that threatens to tear apart the harmony of Camelot.

Something stupid or horrendously anachronistic happens in every scene of First Knight. Many of these moments are thanks to Richard Gere. Gere is at his most smirky here as Lancelot, an American Gigolo in King Arthur’s Court. There are few more modern actors than Gere – so seeing him in armour and cod-medieval garb jumps straight out as completely incongruous. Rather like Costner in Robin Hood, he makes no concessions to period whatsoever, and behaves more or less as he does in Pretty Woman. Every event in the film is met with his trademarked smirk-cum-grin and a twinkle in his eye. And while he clearly spent a lot of time on his sword work for this film, you literally never forget you are watching Julia Robert’s sugar daddy pretend to be a knight.

But then why should be really have made an effort to adjust his manner, accent or style for this film? After all this is a film where Lancelot takes part in a Total Wipeout competition – and on the basis of his performance in it is basically offered a spot at the round table. As a travelling entertainer, Lancelot woos the crowd with the sort of patter not out of place on a New York street corner. Later, the baddies hook up a boat with a pulley system that turns it into a super-fast speedboat. The baddies are all armed with pistol sized cross bows. It’s the sort of film where the lead villain rides into Camelot and shouts “Nobody move! Or Arthur DIES!”. Anyone watching this expecting a faithful exploration of Thomas Mallory seriously needs to change the channel.

So instead embrace the film for what it is. And enjoy the production values! The music score is swellingly impressive (now hugely familiar to any fans of Sky’s Ryder Cup coverage). The Camelot location looks brilliant. The costumes are wonderful – even if the knight’s armour (basically little more than a shield on the shoulder) looks horrendously inefficient. There is a very effective night-time battle excitingly filmed. The photography looks luscious. It’s shot with an old school, chocolate box, romance that makes everything look like a grand renaissance painting. The final battle between Malagrant and Lancelot is terrific.

I’ve also got to say that it offers an actually fairly interesting role to Sean Connery as Arthur. Considering that four years after this film he made Entrapment, a film in which he boffed Catherine Zeta-Jones, in a way it’s fairly daring for him to make a film that puts so much prominence on his age making him an unsuitable lover for Guinevere. His age is prominent in every scene (especially when counter poised with the modern vibrance of Gere). Half the time he’s with Guinevere he reminds her that he knew her as a child (yuck). He takes no part in any of the action – it’s Lancelot who (twice) rescue Guinevere, while Arthur commands from the rear. His relationship with Guinevere is almost devoid of sex and passion (they share only one remotely passionate snog). He even plays the poor cuckold, the man unable to excite his wife. Has Connery ever played such an unflattering part?

Julia Ormond – an actress who achieved a certain run of prominent roles in the 1990s – plays Guinevere. Despite the fact she seems to frequently find herself in distress, Ormond does manage to make Guinevere not feel like a damsel in distress. She’s proactive, she saves others, she’s defiant and (by and large) she knows what she wants and tries to get it. She also is an effective leader of her people. Ormond is also a fine, generous actress – she manages to convey a lot of chemistry with both Gere and Connery, two actors very different in style.

The film remains charged through with silliness. Ben Cross’ snarling villain has big speeches about how he wishes to escape from “the tyranny of Arthur’s Law”. The LAW is a major theme throughout the film – the characters bang on about it with an earnest insistence. Arthur falls back on it to make sense of his life. Lancelot struggles to understand and embrace the values it brings. Guinevere is determined to match law and duty together. Sure there are some silly grandstanding speeches about it – and the film runs with gleeful pride of Camelot as some sort of Socialist Utopia – but I suppose there’s a kernel of an idea at the centre here about justice and its importance in the world. It might mean we get a scene where Camelot is left totally undefended while everyone gathers for an open trial of Guinevere (guess what happens!), but at least it’s got an idea.

Of course that doesn’t get in the way of the silliness, the high blown acting, the silly events and the overblown dialogue. The heroes are all clean cut, and chiselled of jaw with perfect teeth, the villains all dressed in black, forever scowling and rugged of shave. It never for one minute feels remotely like it is happening in a truly medieval world. Richard Gere is, frankly, completely wrong as a medieval knight. But he’s strangely completely right for a film that is a chocolate box entertainment, a soufflé of a romance with swords and passion, that provides a few stirring moments and an interestingly different part for Connery. Gere is a perfect measure for the film – it’s a silly entertainment for those with an affection for Mills and Boon not Henry V. And there’s nothing wrong with that – it knows what it is, and knows what it wants to be taken as. Enjoy it. After all Camelot Lives!