The ITV trailer for the new Jane Austen season is due to air from the 26th February (that's tomorrow!). For a sneak preview see: Guardian Organgrinder.
All three new telefilms look lush and lovely so far. Rupert Penry-Jones is set to wow female audiences as Wentworth in Persuasion, that's for certain. Although JJ Feild might not do himself too much harm in the period drama heart-throb ratings, judging from the very brief glimpse we have here of Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey. Felicity Jones looks exquisite as Catherine Morland. No doubt there will be numerous comments passed over the unruly state of Billie Piper's hair as Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. I can only assume we are meant to believe she is most certainly not yet 'out' in this version (which is true of course, up to the dance held in her honour).
All in all I'm busting for this season to get underway. Word has it that Mansfield Park might air on the 18th March, which is also Mother's Day in the UK of course. I'm half-expecting, with an advertising campaign kicking off tomorrow, that the first Austen adaptation will air the following Sunday. At a guess - again, complete unfounded speculation - the 1997 Emma will be shown first, or perhaps ITV will want to launch with one of its new incarnations?
Or .... perhaps ITV will run the telefilms in order of 'writing' (rather than publication), so that Northanger Abbey will air first, followed by Mansfield Park (on the 18th), then Emma, then Persuasion. However, judging by the buzz circulating, it's my guess that Persuasion is garnering greatest interest, so perhaps that would be the best film to kick off the season.
Alternatively, Billie Piper as Fanny in Mansfield Park is probably the biggest 'name' - plus this adaptation features ex-Eastender Michelle Ryan, which might mean this is the opener, likely to draw the widest audience based on name recognition alone. If so, then the season would take off on Mother's Day. Who knows?? Any info would be much appreciated!
As for the BBC's Sense and Sensibility, to be adapted by Andrew Davies, we have some casting rumours courtesy of Austenblog. Rumours suggest Hattie Morahan as Elinor Dashwood, Charity Wakefield as her sister Marianne and Dominic Cooper as Edward Ferrars.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
BBC misses golden opportunity with high class Lilies
OK, so it's not an adaptation, but I have to put in a good word for Lilies, the BBC period drama, shown 9.00pm Friday nights. It's the last episode next week sadly, to what has been an exhilarating series, with flawless writing and direction. Acting performances have been top-notch too. The screenwriter in this instance is Heidi Thomas, whose impeccable research into the period and place - early 1920s Liverpool, working-class Garston in particular - has truly brought this show to life. Everything, sets, locations, costumes, are seamlessly integrated, lost in context, which is how the best period drama should be.
Best of all, Lilies has never shied away from the brutal realities of life at the time, and has also sustained a warm, convivial sense throughout - in spite of the day to day hardships suffered. The plotlines have been strong and convincing, often shocking, often moving. Indeed, I have been moved from tears to laughter and back again, each episode.
The narrative focuses on the Moss household, comprising three sisters and a brother, all in their late teens to early twenties, who live in a two-up two-down with their widower father.
The most touching character for me is Iris (Catherine Tyldesley), the eldest of the three sisters, who has become a surrogate mother in her household. Iris has a whirlwind marriage which sours very quickly - the wedding night to be precise, when the truth of her husband's World War One wounds is brought to vivid and excrutiating light. It is heart-rending stuff. As the series has progressed she has become closer, spiritually and personally, to her rather dashing Catholic priest, Father Melia (Scot Williams). You could be forgiven for wishing that he could switch denomination and wed her - she'd make an ideal vicar's wife! But her ardent Catholicism is also what makes Iris so interesting, belying her compassion, and also, rather strangely perhaps, her ardent, sensual nature. When she explains in impassioned tones that she loves Jesus as 'a man', even while professing she wishes to be a nun, it's no small wonder that Father Melia is dubious about her true vocation.
Her two sisters Ruby (Kerrie Hayes) and May (Leanne Rowe) are also excellent characters. Ruby is feisty and outspoken while May has entertained ideas 'above her station' and is currently pregnant as the result of an affair with her former boss, from when she worked at his house as a parlourmaid. In truth, her pregnancy was the product of a twisted, insidious plan between the husband and wife - who are infertile - to gain a surrogate child. Except May fell for her baby's father and refuses to cowtow to their demands.
The sisters have a brother, Billy (Daniel Rigby). A gentle chap, mentally scarred from his experiences as a seaman during the war. During the course of the series we learnt of his secret homosexual love affair with a fellow seaman - now horribly deformed from battle, who sadly dies. Billy is a wonderful characterisation, in no small part because of his caustic, dry wit, which often debunks the female histrionics in his household.
Dadda (Brian McCardie) is one of the most fascinating characters of all. He is a man with a heart too big for his body, who is quick to temper, and quick to love. He is irrational, unreasonable, but also intelligent and occasionally fair. He remains a loveable character, in spite of his flaws.
Indeed, this is the most exciting aspect of this series. The quality of the writing is so masterful, each character is treated with an even hand, eliciting both our criticism and our fond empathy, all within a single moment.
It is a shame that the ratings for Lilies have been so poor. The BBC has boobed big time here, choosing to schedule Lilies on a Friday night rather than the Sunday night slot this show lends itself to, meaning it has had to face off Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4 and Midsomer Murders on ITV. Unsurprisingly, ratings have tanked. And yet there has been no repeat option for viewers who would have been an interested audience. Of those who have watched the show, and judging too from comments posted on the BBC website, Lilies has garnered a strong and engaged fanbase.
Sadly I don't expect the BBC to commission a second series, which this show deserves, based on the ratings, which seems all the more unfair when one considers we pay our licence fees for all types of TV fare, not just programmes pandering to ratings which often succumb to a soapy, populist formula. Waterloo Road is a classic example. Series One was pithy, well-written, well-executed. Series Two has plunged into the realm of melodrama, over the top storylines and appalling scriptwork.
I sincerely hope a DVD version of Lilies is launched, to ensure more people get to see this wonderful series, which truly counts as the Best of British. The BBC has produced a top-class production and failed to promote it. This sort of defeatism is sure to undermine the corporation.
Best of all, Lilies has never shied away from the brutal realities of life at the time, and has also sustained a warm, convivial sense throughout - in spite of the day to day hardships suffered. The plotlines have been strong and convincing, often shocking, often moving. Indeed, I have been moved from tears to laughter and back again, each episode.
The narrative focuses on the Moss household, comprising three sisters and a brother, all in their late teens to early twenties, who live in a two-up two-down with their widower father.
The most touching character for me is Iris (Catherine Tyldesley), the eldest of the three sisters, who has become a surrogate mother in her household. Iris has a whirlwind marriage which sours very quickly - the wedding night to be precise, when the truth of her husband's World War One wounds is brought to vivid and excrutiating light. It is heart-rending stuff. As the series has progressed she has become closer, spiritually and personally, to her rather dashing Catholic priest, Father Melia (Scot Williams). You could be forgiven for wishing that he could switch denomination and wed her - she'd make an ideal vicar's wife! But her ardent Catholicism is also what makes Iris so interesting, belying her compassion, and also, rather strangely perhaps, her ardent, sensual nature. When she explains in impassioned tones that she loves Jesus as 'a man', even while professing she wishes to be a nun, it's no small wonder that Father Melia is dubious about her true vocation.
Her two sisters Ruby (Kerrie Hayes) and May (Leanne Rowe) are also excellent characters. Ruby is feisty and outspoken while May has entertained ideas 'above her station' and is currently pregnant as the result of an affair with her former boss, from when she worked at his house as a parlourmaid. In truth, her pregnancy was the product of a twisted, insidious plan between the husband and wife - who are infertile - to gain a surrogate child. Except May fell for her baby's father and refuses to cowtow to their demands.
The sisters have a brother, Billy (Daniel Rigby). A gentle chap, mentally scarred from his experiences as a seaman during the war. During the course of the series we learnt of his secret homosexual love affair with a fellow seaman - now horribly deformed from battle, who sadly dies. Billy is a wonderful characterisation, in no small part because of his caustic, dry wit, which often debunks the female histrionics in his household.
Dadda (Brian McCardie) is one of the most fascinating characters of all. He is a man with a heart too big for his body, who is quick to temper, and quick to love. He is irrational, unreasonable, but also intelligent and occasionally fair. He remains a loveable character, in spite of his flaws.
Indeed, this is the most exciting aspect of this series. The quality of the writing is so masterful, each character is treated with an even hand, eliciting both our criticism and our fond empathy, all within a single moment.
It is a shame that the ratings for Lilies have been so poor. The BBC has boobed big time here, choosing to schedule Lilies on a Friday night rather than the Sunday night slot this show lends itself to, meaning it has had to face off Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4 and Midsomer Murders on ITV. Unsurprisingly, ratings have tanked. And yet there has been no repeat option for viewers who would have been an interested audience. Of those who have watched the show, and judging too from comments posted on the BBC website, Lilies has garnered a strong and engaged fanbase.
Sadly I don't expect the BBC to commission a second series, which this show deserves, based on the ratings, which seems all the more unfair when one considers we pay our licence fees for all types of TV fare, not just programmes pandering to ratings which often succumb to a soapy, populist formula. Waterloo Road is a classic example. Series One was pithy, well-written, well-executed. Series Two has plunged into the realm of melodrama, over the top storylines and appalling scriptwork.
I sincerely hope a DVD version of Lilies is launched, to ensure more people get to see this wonderful series, which truly counts as the Best of British. The BBC has produced a top-class production and failed to promote it. This sort of defeatism is sure to undermine the corporation.
Friday, February 23, 2007
McGrath gives Nicholas Nickleby the sugary sweet treatment
Texan filmmaker Douglas McGrath has developed something of a pedigree with cinematic adaptation having adapted Jane Austen's Emma to screen in 1996, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and more recently, produced Infamous, the latest treatment of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.
This 2002 version of Charles Dickens' novel Nicholas Nickleby is closer in tone and style to Emma than McGrath's other works. Both adaptations are lustrous evocations of nineteenth century England, notable for starring glamourous up and coming stars.
As with Gwyneth Paltrow taking on Emma Woodhouse in McGrath's Emma, Charlie Hunnam is similarly a sleekly handsome blonde bombshell, whose gilded good looks dazzle and charm. Paltrow was archly sweet, making for a girlish, endearing, even vulnerable Emma Woodhouse, barely concealed by her defensive wit and snobbishness. Paltrow's interpretation of the role worked well within the fluffy chocolate-box context of McGrath's film. McGrath's Nicholas Nickleby has to indulge in a somewhat darker palette at times, as suits a narrative where cruelty and inhumanity are paramount features. Hunnam plays Nickleby with earnest sweetness, but fails to imbue the character with a sense of emotional depth, and his performance is anaemic and stilted alongside the ranks of fine character actors who illuminate this cast.
Nickleby's eventual love interest, Madeleine Bray, is played here by another up and coming 'looker' with a knack for sweetness - Anne Hathaway. Hathaway struggles to disguise her American accent at times - let's hope she fares better in the forthcoming picture, Becoming Jane, a very loose biopic focusing on Austen's romantic interest in Tom LeFroy.
Stronger here was Romola Garai as a positively luminous Kate Nickleby, while Jim Broadbent and Juliet Stevenson made for deliciously wicked, psychopathic renditions of Wackford Squeers and his wife. Nathan Lane offered suitable comic relief as Vincent Crummles (effectively acting as the film's supra-narrator too), while the brilliant Alan Cummings was sorely under-used as Mr Folair. Amidst a plethora of other notable acting cameos from the likes of Timothy Spall, Tom Courtenay, Phil Davis, Sophie Thompson, Barry Humphries and Edward Fox as a lecherous Sir Mulberry Hawk, Christopher Plummer hammed it grandly as the pernicious Uncle Ralph Nickleby. Meanwhile Jamie Bell made for a suitably tragic Smike - a role which has been grossly over-sentimentalised, both by Dickens and again by McGrath.
Indeed, McGrath has taken on Dickens's penchant for sentimentality with enthusiastic gusto, smothering this film with a thin layer of slightly sickly sentimental goo. The horrors of the gruesome Yorkshire schools, where young boys were tortured and abandoned, are diluted by the saccharine-sweetness which permeates this picture. Money-mad Ralph Nickleby's heartlessness is a foremost factor of course, best conveyed by the humilation he metes out to his niece Kate, through his exposing her to ridicule and lechery amongst his investor clients. But there remains a 'safe' sense throughout - the film lacks an edgy backbone and any audience anxiety has been minimised. The colours, the sets, the costumes, are too sharp, too bright, too technicolour, even in London, where poverty and hardship were obvious and unavoidable factors. Scenes set in Bucolic Devonshire, where the Nickleby's cottage is based, are bathed in honeyed-soft sunlight, ensuring a dreamlike, nostalgic and definitively unreal quality.
Added to this is the pleasant, tooting trademark musical scoring of Rachel Portman, who also scored McGrath's Emma. Indeed, Portman's syrupy, sweet and jocular style ideally suits McGrath's view of nineteenth century England. Her jaunty style is a standout in every film she composes for, including Only You, Chocolat and Polanski's Oliver Twist. She has had an illustrious and successful career, and certainly her musical style is used to good effect here, in that it absolutely matches the director's intent.
Narratologically, McGrath steers a steady if uninspiring course with his adapted screenplay, which is compact and fluent. Nicholas and Smike's stay with Crummles' acting troupe feels a little rushed, but is probably suitably truncated in terms of the over-arching plot. Perhaps the closing stages can be criticised. The Nickleby-Bray romance, while foreshadowed, is hastily engineered, and indeed, the final punishment for his cold-hearted Uncle Ralph is too swift and a little confusing. The closing scenes at the Devonshire cottage are too long and too sappy, and reek of cloying sentimentality.
Dickens is one of our best-loved and most frequently adapted authors. Adaptations tend to fall into two camps: those which offer challenging and richly-rewarding interpretations of his work, where his characters flicker to life in their full multi-faceted glory, and then there are those which serve up strongly drawn caricatures amidst boldy-lit and colourful land and townscapes, revelling in nostalgic, lush evocations of an imagined past. McGrath's Nicholas Nickleby occupies the secondary camp, while the triumphant BBC series of Bleak House in 2005, is a fine example of the first.
Even so, McGrath's film is an enjoyable romp, which does not require a great deal of mental engagement, but at least prompts a smile on a regular basis. It is harmless, frothy fun, neatly packaged with a strong, if thinly-spread cast. Hunnam and Hathaway are at least nice to look at, if a little uninspiring - which pretty much sums up the piece.
This 2002 version of Charles Dickens' novel Nicholas Nickleby is closer in tone and style to Emma than McGrath's other works. Both adaptations are lustrous evocations of nineteenth century England, notable for starring glamourous up and coming stars.
As with Gwyneth Paltrow taking on Emma Woodhouse in McGrath's Emma, Charlie Hunnam is similarly a sleekly handsome blonde bombshell, whose gilded good looks dazzle and charm. Paltrow was archly sweet, making for a girlish, endearing, even vulnerable Emma Woodhouse, barely concealed by her defensive wit and snobbishness. Paltrow's interpretation of the role worked well within the fluffy chocolate-box context of McGrath's film. McGrath's Nicholas Nickleby has to indulge in a somewhat darker palette at times, as suits a narrative where cruelty and inhumanity are paramount features. Hunnam plays Nickleby with earnest sweetness, but fails to imbue the character with a sense of emotional depth, and his performance is anaemic and stilted alongside the ranks of fine character actors who illuminate this cast.
Nickleby's eventual love interest, Madeleine Bray, is played here by another up and coming 'looker' with a knack for sweetness - Anne Hathaway. Hathaway struggles to disguise her American accent at times - let's hope she fares better in the forthcoming picture, Becoming Jane, a very loose biopic focusing on Austen's romantic interest in Tom LeFroy.
Stronger here was Romola Garai as a positively luminous Kate Nickleby, while Jim Broadbent and Juliet Stevenson made for deliciously wicked, psychopathic renditions of Wackford Squeers and his wife. Nathan Lane offered suitable comic relief as Vincent Crummles (effectively acting as the film's supra-narrator too), while the brilliant Alan Cummings was sorely under-used as Mr Folair. Amidst a plethora of other notable acting cameos from the likes of Timothy Spall, Tom Courtenay, Phil Davis, Sophie Thompson, Barry Humphries and Edward Fox as a lecherous Sir Mulberry Hawk, Christopher Plummer hammed it grandly as the pernicious Uncle Ralph Nickleby. Meanwhile Jamie Bell made for a suitably tragic Smike - a role which has been grossly over-sentimentalised, both by Dickens and again by McGrath.
Indeed, McGrath has taken on Dickens's penchant for sentimentality with enthusiastic gusto, smothering this film with a thin layer of slightly sickly sentimental goo. The horrors of the gruesome Yorkshire schools, where young boys were tortured and abandoned, are diluted by the saccharine-sweetness which permeates this picture. Money-mad Ralph Nickleby's heartlessness is a foremost factor of course, best conveyed by the humilation he metes out to his niece Kate, through his exposing her to ridicule and lechery amongst his investor clients. But there remains a 'safe' sense throughout - the film lacks an edgy backbone and any audience anxiety has been minimised. The colours, the sets, the costumes, are too sharp, too bright, too technicolour, even in London, where poverty and hardship were obvious and unavoidable factors. Scenes set in Bucolic Devonshire, where the Nickleby's cottage is based, are bathed in honeyed-soft sunlight, ensuring a dreamlike, nostalgic and definitively unreal quality.
Added to this is the pleasant, tooting trademark musical scoring of Rachel Portman, who also scored McGrath's Emma. Indeed, Portman's syrupy, sweet and jocular style ideally suits McGrath's view of nineteenth century England. Her jaunty style is a standout in every film she composes for, including Only You, Chocolat and Polanski's Oliver Twist. She has had an illustrious and successful career, and certainly her musical style is used to good effect here, in that it absolutely matches the director's intent.
Narratologically, McGrath steers a steady if uninspiring course with his adapted screenplay, which is compact and fluent. Nicholas and Smike's stay with Crummles' acting troupe feels a little rushed, but is probably suitably truncated in terms of the over-arching plot. Perhaps the closing stages can be criticised. The Nickleby-Bray romance, while foreshadowed, is hastily engineered, and indeed, the final punishment for his cold-hearted Uncle Ralph is too swift and a little confusing. The closing scenes at the Devonshire cottage are too long and too sappy, and reek of cloying sentimentality.
Dickens is one of our best-loved and most frequently adapted authors. Adaptations tend to fall into two camps: those which offer challenging and richly-rewarding interpretations of his work, where his characters flicker to life in their full multi-faceted glory, and then there are those which serve up strongly drawn caricatures amidst boldy-lit and colourful land and townscapes, revelling in nostalgic, lush evocations of an imagined past. McGrath's Nicholas Nickleby occupies the secondary camp, while the triumphant BBC series of Bleak House in 2005, is a fine example of the first.
Even so, McGrath's film is an enjoyable romp, which does not require a great deal of mental engagement, but at least prompts a smile on a regular basis. It is harmless, frothy fun, neatly packaged with a strong, if thinly-spread cast. Hunnam and Hathaway are at least nice to look at, if a little uninspiring - which pretty much sums up the piece.
Monday, February 19, 2007
BBC's Dracula lacks bite
The BBC aired a single tele-film version of Bram Stoker's Dracula in December 2006, the latest in a long line of Draculas to haunt out screens. This adaptation - like most Draculas - strayed from the original Bram Stoker novel.
The threat of syphilis was at the heart of this particular interpretation - a fatal illness residing in the victim's blood, the corollary of sexual deviance and/or promiscuity, which could be passed from generation to generation. Syphilis was topical to its time, but there was a sense that syphilis was acting here as a metaphor for AIDS too.
The protagonist of this version was Lord Holmwood, played here by Dan Stevens (The Line of Beauty, who turns to a sinister, Satan-worshipping underground cult, to help cure him of the syphilis he has inherited from his father. He is desperate for a cure as he longs to bed his luscious, newly-wed wife, Lucy Westenra, enthusiastically played by Sophia Myles. Jonathan Harker - a criminally under-used Rafe Spall in this version - is dispatched to his doom in Transylvania, running an errand for Dracula, who is using Holmwood's cult to his own fiendish ends ... which soon leads to Dracula's sneaking into Britain via Whitby, seducing poor frustrated Lucy, who then becomes a vampire herself, while developing the hots for Mina, Harker's fiancee (Stephanie Leonidas).
Marc Warren took on the iconoclastic role of Dracula. Warren is a favourite actor of mine, but there was something a little lacking here. Similarly, David Suchet as a hoary-headed, melodramatic Van Helsing, failed to impress - strange really, in view of his fine acting credentials.
Sets, locations and costumes were suitably dark and gothic. But the screenplay from Stewart Harcourt was lacklustre and direction (Bill Eagles) was dull and predictable.
Overall, this Dracula lacks bite.
The threat of syphilis was at the heart of this particular interpretation - a fatal illness residing in the victim's blood, the corollary of sexual deviance and/or promiscuity, which could be passed from generation to generation. Syphilis was topical to its time, but there was a sense that syphilis was acting here as a metaphor for AIDS too.
The protagonist of this version was Lord Holmwood, played here by Dan Stevens (The Line of Beauty, who turns to a sinister, Satan-worshipping underground cult, to help cure him of the syphilis he has inherited from his father. He is desperate for a cure as he longs to bed his luscious, newly-wed wife, Lucy Westenra, enthusiastically played by Sophia Myles. Jonathan Harker - a criminally under-used Rafe Spall in this version - is dispatched to his doom in Transylvania, running an errand for Dracula, who is using Holmwood's cult to his own fiendish ends ... which soon leads to Dracula's sneaking into Britain via Whitby, seducing poor frustrated Lucy, who then becomes a vampire herself, while developing the hots for Mina, Harker's fiancee (Stephanie Leonidas).
Marc Warren took on the iconoclastic role of Dracula. Warren is a favourite actor of mine, but there was something a little lacking here. Similarly, David Suchet as a hoary-headed, melodramatic Van Helsing, failed to impress - strange really, in view of his fine acting credentials.
Sets, locations and costumes were suitably dark and gothic. But the screenplay from Stewart Harcourt was lacklustre and direction (Bill Eagles) was dull and predictable.
Overall, this Dracula lacks bite.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Cranford Chronicles coming our way
Finally we have news from the BBC that an adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford is to commence filming this April in the Cotswolds and London. The five-part series is set to star Judi Dench (no less) in the main role as Matty Jenkyns. Sue Birtwhistle, with a solid pedigree in period drama, including the BBC's 1995 Pride and Prejudice, is producer, and Heidi Thomas is the screenwriter. The involvement of Thomas in particular has sparked my interest in this project, as I am a big fan of her writing based on the current BBC drama series Lilies.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Coming soon ...
My computer has been dead for the last few weeks hence I have been suffering Mac Deprivation Sickness ... and been unable to update this blog, sadly. All being well, business can now resume as usual.
Reviews to come, based on material watched in the last two weeks, include the BBC's Dracula (screened December 2006), Our Mutual Friend (BBC, 1998), Vanity Fair (Focus/Granada 2004) and Nicholas Nickleby (2002).
On the non-adaptation front, I have also been enjoying the BBC's new drama series Lilies, charting the experiences of three young women, growing up in 1920s Liverpool. It's great stuff so far - fine acting and a great script from Heidi Thomas. I hope a second series is commissioned.
And like many others no doubt, I am eagerly looking forward to the return of Lost to Sky One on the 11th February.
I also caught up (finally) with the political BBC mini-seres, State of Play, which first aired in 2003. Magnificent! John Simms was fantastic, Bill Nighy was sublime, Kelly MacDonald was brilliant, James MacAvoy was his best chirpy self, and David Morissey proved to me yet again that he was one of our finest actors. In fact all the cast, including Philip Glenister and Polly Walker, were simply outstanding - not a dud performance in sight. The drama, penned by Paul Abbott, was superbly paced, truly riveting.
Reviews to come, based on material watched in the last two weeks, include the BBC's Dracula (screened December 2006), Our Mutual Friend (BBC, 1998), Vanity Fair (Focus/Granada 2004) and Nicholas Nickleby (2002).
On the non-adaptation front, I have also been enjoying the BBC's new drama series Lilies, charting the experiences of three young women, growing up in 1920s Liverpool. It's great stuff so far - fine acting and a great script from Heidi Thomas. I hope a second series is commissioned.
And like many others no doubt, I am eagerly looking forward to the return of Lost to Sky One on the 11th February.
I also caught up (finally) with the political BBC mini-seres, State of Play, which first aired in 2003. Magnificent! John Simms was fantastic, Bill Nighy was sublime, Kelly MacDonald was brilliant, James MacAvoy was his best chirpy self, and David Morissey proved to me yet again that he was one of our finest actors. In fact all the cast, including Philip Glenister and Polly Walker, were simply outstanding - not a dud performance in sight. The drama, penned by Paul Abbott, was superbly paced, truly riveting.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The BBC gets it right with Trollope's He Knew He Was Right
In 2004, the BBC aired a six-part mini-series adaptation of Anthony Trollope's He Knew He was Right, directed by Tom Vaughan with a screenplay from Britain's favourite adaptor, Andrew Davies.
This adaptation garnered modest critical praise and generated medium-key spectator interest. Certainly it was not the recipient of grand plaudits and praise, in the mould of other BBC triumphs such as Bleak House (2005) and Pride and Prejudice (1995). Indeed, an earlier Trollope adaptation, The Way We Live Now, aired in 2001 with a Davies screenplay and superb direction from David Yates, had secured greater media interest. This was in large part due to strong acting performances from David Suchet, Matthew Macfayden and Shirley Henderson, and because the core themes of the production - a stocks bubble focusing on the 19th century obsession with building railroads - could be topically compared to the Internet boom at the time.
He Knew He Was Right cannot boast similar selling points. This is much more a tale of small-scale domesticana, mild chicanery, and a study of the highs and lows of romantic love and courtship. For all that, there is an unmistakeable toughness at the heart of this narrative. Few adaptations, few stories, have offered such a blistering critique of the condition of womanhood in the nineteenth century with such deceptive softness and finesse, with such gentle humour and warmth.
The BBC’s He Knew He Was Right offers three key plotlines which interweave and inter-relate throughout. The primary plot focuses on the failing marriage of Louis and Emily Trevelyan. Louis suspects his naieve young wife Emily to be having an affair with her godfather, Colonel Osborne, played with cheeky aplomb by the inimitable Bill Nighy. Louis refuses to believe his wife when she (rightly) protests her innocence. Conscious of the possibility of social disapproval – again unwarranted – Louis chooses to ostracise his wife, sending her away, with her beautiful, younger sister Nora in tow, thereby tarnishing both sisters, while potentially damaging Nora's marriage prospects to boot.
Matters worsen for poor Emily when Louis also decides to take control of their young son, taking him abroad to Italy, where Emily cannot gain access to him – although legally, during this period, Emily has no rights at all, with regard to custody of her son. Indeed, she is shown throughout to be little more than a chattel, her husband’s property. The fact that her husband is clearly losing his mind, sinking into depravity as his lucidity fast wanes, has little bearing on her case.
Emily is played sympathetically here by Laura Fraser, best known perhaps for her role as Kate in A Knight’s Tale, starring alongside Heath Ledger. Fraser naturally has a wide-eyed, innocent gaze which serves her well in this role. She is hugely appealing, cruelly victimised, but unflinchingly strong in spirit, despite her ordeal. Oliver Dimsdale takes on the difficult role of Louis – difficult because he has to somehow manage to combine a sense of weariness, mental vulnerability and confusion (incredibly, he never stops loving his wife, despite his harsh behaviour), with an arrogant refusal to believe in his wife’s virtue, resulting in cruelty and shame. Indeed, Louis’s own actions further exacerbate what was merely an unregarded hint of scandal, blowing it out of all proportion, needlessly destroying his wife’s reputation in the meanwhile - crushing his own hopes for happiness with the family he loves.
Louis’s actions also affect Emily’s sister Nora, played with luminous beauty by Christina Cole (recently seen as Blanche in the BBC’s 2006 version of Jane Eyre), as she is in love with Louis’s close friend Hugh Stanbury (Stephen Campbell Moore). Their romance is thwarted, first by Emily’s shocking change in circumstances, and then by Nora and Emily’s parents, who are displeased that Nora has formerly rejected the suit of a landed lord in favour of Hugh, who is a mere journalist.
The third major plotline involves Hugh’s family – most particularly his sister Dorothy, played with engaging grace and charm by Caroline Martin. Dorothy is dispatched to the pretty cathedral town of Wells, to stay with her elderly Aunt Jemima. Anna Massie is marvellous as the crabby but kind Aunt, who takes a real shine to her niece, hoping to marry her off to Mr Gibson, a local curate.
David Tennant as Gibson is a real standout show-stealer here. Indeed, the ‘Wells’ plotline and cast proves to be one of the most successful elements of this production, in no small part due to the fine acting of Gibson, Massie, Martin and Claudie Blakley, who warrants particular mention as the psychotic Camilla French, to whom Gibson is forcibly engaged, instantly regretting it, and desperate to wriggle out of the arrangement. Gibson's dilemma is prompted by Dorothy's refusal of his hand in marriage (he was keen to secure £2000 promised her by her Aunt), but all the while he is furiously courted by two sisters vying for his affection - the Misses French, Camilla and Arabella. Their bitchy antics provide much of the comic relief here, although there is a strong sense too that Gibson deserves the angst he suffers at their hands – that he has not behaved honourably.
Dorothy is soon embroiled in her own romantic troubles. An unassuming girl, she never expects romantic fulfilment, but is soon proposed to by Brooke Burgess, played by Matthew Goode, who is almost unhealthily smooth and handsome. But Aunt Jemima, at first, is reluctant to let them wed – but we all know, there will be a happy outcome … and are genuinely pleased for Dorothy.
Other notable acting credits should go to Ron Cook, who is excellent as the slimy detective Bosul, John Alderton as the dour parson Mr Outhouse, Amy Marston as prissy Priscilla Stanbury, Raymond Coulthard as Nora’s kindly, rich admirer Mr Glascock, and Geraldine James and Geoffrey Palmer – the latter, especially splendid – as the Rowleys, parents to poor Emily and Nora.
Production values are uniformly solid throughout, although I sense this was not as high budget a production as others the BBC have produced in recent years. But locations are aptly chosen, and a foreign foray into splendid Tuscan countryside, is also thrown in for good measure. Costumes and sets are spot-on. Direction is serviceable and entertaining, conveying us simply and easily through the plot, while highlighting the very real political issues pertaining to women’s rights (or rather the lack of them) in nineteenth century Britain. Davies’s script is especially commendable in his adept handling of the Louis/Emily marriage. Davies is one of our finest writers when it comes to ensuring a sharp critical focus on historical proto-feminist commentary. He is particularly strong at virtuous heroines who are both strong and vulnerable.
This is a fine, albeit underrated adaptation. There is a gentle cadence to the production. It is amusing and even a little twee at times, but still it remains a strongly argued piece of work. It is not in the same class as the marvellous Bleak House or as unrelentingly enjoyable as Pride and Prejudice. But it is a well-produced, well-acted contribution to the BBC’s bulging portfolio of period dramas, and further proof too that Trollope makes for good TV drama. I sincerely hope we get a version of the Palliser novels some time in the future, or indeed, a re-run of the Barsetshire chronicles. Trollope says very serious things in a deceptively sweet and sincere manner, and this adaptation is no exception.
This adaptation garnered modest critical praise and generated medium-key spectator interest. Certainly it was not the recipient of grand plaudits and praise, in the mould of other BBC triumphs such as Bleak House (2005) and Pride and Prejudice (1995). Indeed, an earlier Trollope adaptation, The Way We Live Now, aired in 2001 with a Davies screenplay and superb direction from David Yates, had secured greater media interest. This was in large part due to strong acting performances from David Suchet, Matthew Macfayden and Shirley Henderson, and because the core themes of the production - a stocks bubble focusing on the 19th century obsession with building railroads - could be topically compared to the Internet boom at the time.
He Knew He Was Right cannot boast similar selling points. This is much more a tale of small-scale domesticana, mild chicanery, and a study of the highs and lows of romantic love and courtship. For all that, there is an unmistakeable toughness at the heart of this narrative. Few adaptations, few stories, have offered such a blistering critique of the condition of womanhood in the nineteenth century with such deceptive softness and finesse, with such gentle humour and warmth.
The BBC’s He Knew He Was Right offers three key plotlines which interweave and inter-relate throughout. The primary plot focuses on the failing marriage of Louis and Emily Trevelyan. Louis suspects his naieve young wife Emily to be having an affair with her godfather, Colonel Osborne, played with cheeky aplomb by the inimitable Bill Nighy. Louis refuses to believe his wife when she (rightly) protests her innocence. Conscious of the possibility of social disapproval – again unwarranted – Louis chooses to ostracise his wife, sending her away, with her beautiful, younger sister Nora in tow, thereby tarnishing both sisters, while potentially damaging Nora's marriage prospects to boot.
Matters worsen for poor Emily when Louis also decides to take control of their young son, taking him abroad to Italy, where Emily cannot gain access to him – although legally, during this period, Emily has no rights at all, with regard to custody of her son. Indeed, she is shown throughout to be little more than a chattel, her husband’s property. The fact that her husband is clearly losing his mind, sinking into depravity as his lucidity fast wanes, has little bearing on her case.
Emily is played sympathetically here by Laura Fraser, best known perhaps for her role as Kate in A Knight’s Tale, starring alongside Heath Ledger. Fraser naturally has a wide-eyed, innocent gaze which serves her well in this role. She is hugely appealing, cruelly victimised, but unflinchingly strong in spirit, despite her ordeal. Oliver Dimsdale takes on the difficult role of Louis – difficult because he has to somehow manage to combine a sense of weariness, mental vulnerability and confusion (incredibly, he never stops loving his wife, despite his harsh behaviour), with an arrogant refusal to believe in his wife’s virtue, resulting in cruelty and shame. Indeed, Louis’s own actions further exacerbate what was merely an unregarded hint of scandal, blowing it out of all proportion, needlessly destroying his wife’s reputation in the meanwhile - crushing his own hopes for happiness with the family he loves.
Louis’s actions also affect Emily’s sister Nora, played with luminous beauty by Christina Cole (recently seen as Blanche in the BBC’s 2006 version of Jane Eyre), as she is in love with Louis’s close friend Hugh Stanbury (Stephen Campbell Moore). Their romance is thwarted, first by Emily’s shocking change in circumstances, and then by Nora and Emily’s parents, who are displeased that Nora has formerly rejected the suit of a landed lord in favour of Hugh, who is a mere journalist.
The third major plotline involves Hugh’s family – most particularly his sister Dorothy, played with engaging grace and charm by Caroline Martin. Dorothy is dispatched to the pretty cathedral town of Wells, to stay with her elderly Aunt Jemima. Anna Massie is marvellous as the crabby but kind Aunt, who takes a real shine to her niece, hoping to marry her off to Mr Gibson, a local curate.
David Tennant as Gibson is a real standout show-stealer here. Indeed, the ‘Wells’ plotline and cast proves to be one of the most successful elements of this production, in no small part due to the fine acting of Gibson, Massie, Martin and Claudie Blakley, who warrants particular mention as the psychotic Camilla French, to whom Gibson is forcibly engaged, instantly regretting it, and desperate to wriggle out of the arrangement. Gibson's dilemma is prompted by Dorothy's refusal of his hand in marriage (he was keen to secure £2000 promised her by her Aunt), but all the while he is furiously courted by two sisters vying for his affection - the Misses French, Camilla and Arabella. Their bitchy antics provide much of the comic relief here, although there is a strong sense too that Gibson deserves the angst he suffers at their hands – that he has not behaved honourably.
Dorothy is soon embroiled in her own romantic troubles. An unassuming girl, she never expects romantic fulfilment, but is soon proposed to by Brooke Burgess, played by Matthew Goode, who is almost unhealthily smooth and handsome. But Aunt Jemima, at first, is reluctant to let them wed – but we all know, there will be a happy outcome … and are genuinely pleased for Dorothy.
Other notable acting credits should go to Ron Cook, who is excellent as the slimy detective Bosul, John Alderton as the dour parson Mr Outhouse, Amy Marston as prissy Priscilla Stanbury, Raymond Coulthard as Nora’s kindly, rich admirer Mr Glascock, and Geraldine James and Geoffrey Palmer – the latter, especially splendid – as the Rowleys, parents to poor Emily and Nora.
Production values are uniformly solid throughout, although I sense this was not as high budget a production as others the BBC have produced in recent years. But locations are aptly chosen, and a foreign foray into splendid Tuscan countryside, is also thrown in for good measure. Costumes and sets are spot-on. Direction is serviceable and entertaining, conveying us simply and easily through the plot, while highlighting the very real political issues pertaining to women’s rights (or rather the lack of them) in nineteenth century Britain. Davies’s script is especially commendable in his adept handling of the Louis/Emily marriage. Davies is one of our finest writers when it comes to ensuring a sharp critical focus on historical proto-feminist commentary. He is particularly strong at virtuous heroines who are both strong and vulnerable.
This is a fine, albeit underrated adaptation. There is a gentle cadence to the production. It is amusing and even a little twee at times, but still it remains a strongly argued piece of work. It is not in the same class as the marvellous Bleak House or as unrelentingly enjoyable as Pride and Prejudice. But it is a well-produced, well-acted contribution to the BBC’s bulging portfolio of period dramas, and further proof too that Trollope makes for good TV drama. I sincerely hope we get a version of the Palliser novels some time in the future, or indeed, a re-run of the Barsetshire chronicles. Trollope says very serious things in a deceptively sweet and sincere manner, and this adaptation is no exception.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
BBC's Archangel is a drab affair
I recently watched the BBC's adaptation of Archangel, based on the Robert Harris novel. This mini-series, directed by Jon Jones and adapted to the screen by Dick Clement, was originally aired in 2005, but I decided to give it a go on DVD.
This is a lacklustre adaptation, despite a promising start. Daniel Craig is fine here as academic Fluke Kelso, an expert in Stalin and modern Russian history. He almost comes a cropper, tracking down a long-lost son of Stalin, now harboured by a band of conniving, ruthless Communists (in the 1990s) as a secret weapon - a means to ignite nostalgic fervour amongst Russia's poverty-stricken masses, hankering for the securities of a former communist regime. Craig has some OK support in the form of Gabriel Macht, as an adventuring American journalist who hopes for the story of a lifetime, and in the pretty personage of Yekaterina Rednikova, who plays Zinaida, the call girl daughter of Papu (Valery Chernak), who as a young man bore witness to the suppression of Stalin's 'secret' when the dictator died.
Russia is portrayed as cold, frostbitten, bleak and uncompromising. This is a chilly production. Atmospheric as this may be, the overall tenor of the production is too dour, too grainy, and simply too dull. By the time Craig and Macht have encountered the clearly loopy Stalin Jr, Josef, played here with surly aplomb by Konstantin Lavronenko, I found my attention wandering.
This is a shame. Some of the acting, from a mainly Russian cast, is top-notch. The scenery is convincing. Production values are strong, if not exciting. Perhaps it is the story itself? I had hoped to be gripped much, much more. All the right ingredients were in place. I love a conspiracy theory, and Russian politics is a pet topic. But this thriller failed to grip.
This is a lacklustre adaptation, despite a promising start. Daniel Craig is fine here as academic Fluke Kelso, an expert in Stalin and modern Russian history. He almost comes a cropper, tracking down a long-lost son of Stalin, now harboured by a band of conniving, ruthless Communists (in the 1990s) as a secret weapon - a means to ignite nostalgic fervour amongst Russia's poverty-stricken masses, hankering for the securities of a former communist regime. Craig has some OK support in the form of Gabriel Macht, as an adventuring American journalist who hopes for the story of a lifetime, and in the pretty personage of Yekaterina Rednikova, who plays Zinaida, the call girl daughter of Papu (Valery Chernak), who as a young man bore witness to the suppression of Stalin's 'secret' when the dictator died.
Russia is portrayed as cold, frostbitten, bleak and uncompromising. This is a chilly production. Atmospheric as this may be, the overall tenor of the production is too dour, too grainy, and simply too dull. By the time Craig and Macht have encountered the clearly loopy Stalin Jr, Josef, played here with surly aplomb by Konstantin Lavronenko, I found my attention wandering.
This is a shame. Some of the acting, from a mainly Russian cast, is top-notch. The scenery is convincing. Production values are strong, if not exciting. Perhaps it is the story itself? I had hoped to be gripped much, much more. All the right ingredients were in place. I love a conspiracy theory, and Russian politics is a pet topic. But this thriller failed to grip.
BBC 4 Sci-fi season - hit and miss
A long overdue comment on BBC 4's Sci-Fi season, late 2006 .... two adaptations were featured: The Haunted Airman, a teleplay version of Dennis Wheatley's The Haunting of Toby Jugg, and an adaptation of John Wyndham's Random Quest.
The Haunted Airman was an odd little piece, written and directed by Chris Durlacher; an over-wrought, blue-tinged gloomfest starring sweet-faced Robert Pattison (most famous as the doomed Cedric in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) as the wheelchair-bound Toby Jugg, an airman haunted by his role in fire-bombing Dresden in WWII. Poor Jugg is marooned in a large, shadowy mansion, somewhere in Wales, to convalesce with other similarly disturbed patients, overseen by Dr Hal Burns. Jugg instantly takes a paranoid dislike to Burns, and suspects him (correctly as it turns out) of reading his mail - letters mainly directed to his youthful Aunt Julia (Racheal Stirling), with whom Jugg is in love. Jugg's obsessional nightmares focus, rather creepily, on spiders, but before long, his hatred of Dr Burns gathers pace and he attempts to escape. This is far from surprising, given the excrutiatingly wooden acting performance given here by Julian Sands as Burns. Stirling is fine as Aunt Julia, who moves into the nursing home and soon embarks on an affair with the wooden-toned Burns - with fatal consequences.
Much better was the hour-long teleplay Random Quest, starring Samuel West as Colin, a young nerdish physicist who winds up in a parallel universe after a failed scientific experiment. In this alternative world, Colin is a top-selling, wealthy author of trashy fiction, married to a beautiful woman, with whom he (the 'real' Colin) soon falls in love, although the alternative Colin has been a womaniser. New Colin 'reforms' the Old Colin and is then pinged back to his own world - our world - where he sets about seeking his soulmate wife. This adaptation was nicely paced with some slick directing from Luke Watson. The script was penned by Richard Fell.
The Haunted Airman was an odd little piece, written and directed by Chris Durlacher; an over-wrought, blue-tinged gloomfest starring sweet-faced Robert Pattison (most famous as the doomed Cedric in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) as the wheelchair-bound Toby Jugg, an airman haunted by his role in fire-bombing Dresden in WWII. Poor Jugg is marooned in a large, shadowy mansion, somewhere in Wales, to convalesce with other similarly disturbed patients, overseen by Dr Hal Burns. Jugg instantly takes a paranoid dislike to Burns, and suspects him (correctly as it turns out) of reading his mail - letters mainly directed to his youthful Aunt Julia (Racheal Stirling), with whom Jugg is in love. Jugg's obsessional nightmares focus, rather creepily, on spiders, but before long, his hatred of Dr Burns gathers pace and he attempts to escape. This is far from surprising, given the excrutiatingly wooden acting performance given here by Julian Sands as Burns. Stirling is fine as Aunt Julia, who moves into the nursing home and soon embarks on an affair with the wooden-toned Burns - with fatal consequences.
Much better was the hour-long teleplay Random Quest, starring Samuel West as Colin, a young nerdish physicist who winds up in a parallel universe after a failed scientific experiment. In this alternative world, Colin is a top-selling, wealthy author of trashy fiction, married to a beautiful woman, with whom he (the 'real' Colin) soon falls in love, although the alternative Colin has been a womaniser. New Colin 'reforms' the Old Colin and is then pinged back to his own world - our world - where he sets about seeking his soulmate wife. This adaptation was nicely paced with some slick directing from Luke Watson. The script was penned by Richard Fell.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Ruby in the Smoke - disjointed, disappointing
A brief review of the BBC's adaptation of Phillip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke, which aired on the 27th September. This was hugely disappointing. The narrative was horribly rushed, ensuring a disjointed production. If I had not read the novel before watching this, I would have given up halfway through in exasperation.
Billie Piper was passable in the lead role as Sally Lockhart. But, there is something all too modern in her air, which in many respects should lend itself well to Sally's forthright, proto-feminist character - but instead Piper always felt like she was trying too hard. She was also overshadowed by Hayley Atwell, in her few brief scenes as Rosa Garland, which does not bode well for Piper's prospects as Fanny Price in the ITV version of Mansfield Park, where she stars alongside Atwell, playing Mary Crawford. Even better was JJ Feild, taking on the role of Frederick Garland, Rosa's brother and Sally's friend (and clearly the subject of a mutual crush). Piper has a buoyant, pleasing presence, but although this was not her finest hour, nevertheless. she was far from dismal.
Sadly the same cannot be said of one of Britain's best-loved actresses Julie Walters, who played the pernicious Mrs Holland - Sally's arch-nemesis and a murderer to boot. Walters was excrutiatingly poor here, seemingly regurgitating her once famous role as the hilarious, crook-backed Mrs Overall in Acorn Antiques, re-spun with a sneering, sinister twist. To be frank I had harboured doubts at Walters's casting in this role. There is something too spare, spry and light in her demeanour, her bearing, which to my mind, never quite suited the thuggish solidity of Mrs Holland.
Other notable castings included David Harewood, playing the Bedwell twins Nicholas and Matthew, Miles Anderson briefly as Major Marchbanks, and newcomer Matt Smith (who woefully underperformed) as the cockney cheeky chappy Jim Taylor. Chloe Walker made for an appealing Adelaide.
Brian Percival, the director, did precious little innovative with what was a fairly pedestrian adapted script from Adrian Hodges, who has fared better in the past with the mini-series Charles II: The Power & the Passion and an adaptation of Dickens's David Copperfield in 1999. He has now been hired to adapt the sequel, The Shadow in the North - which is perhaps a better novel, with a stronger plotline - and I sincerely hope he produces a stronger, more coherent and more 'cinematic' screenplay. In truth, this adaptation strived to keep close to the source text, but Pullman's original is a bit of a jumble - albeit enjoyable. Hodges would maybe have been better advised to re-draft wholesale, sections of this text.
Sets, scenery and location were fine if uninspiring. This period drama is not set to win awards, that's for sure. But it made for a pleasant enough evening's viewing, even though it was far from outstanding, and never better than average.
Billie Piper was passable in the lead role as Sally Lockhart. But, there is something all too modern in her air, which in many respects should lend itself well to Sally's forthright, proto-feminist character - but instead Piper always felt like she was trying too hard. She was also overshadowed by Hayley Atwell, in her few brief scenes as Rosa Garland, which does not bode well for Piper's prospects as Fanny Price in the ITV version of Mansfield Park, where she stars alongside Atwell, playing Mary Crawford. Even better was JJ Feild, taking on the role of Frederick Garland, Rosa's brother and Sally's friend (and clearly the subject of a mutual crush). Piper has a buoyant, pleasing presence, but although this was not her finest hour, nevertheless. she was far from dismal.
Sadly the same cannot be said of one of Britain's best-loved actresses Julie Walters, who played the pernicious Mrs Holland - Sally's arch-nemesis and a murderer to boot. Walters was excrutiatingly poor here, seemingly regurgitating her once famous role as the hilarious, crook-backed Mrs Overall in Acorn Antiques, re-spun with a sneering, sinister twist. To be frank I had harboured doubts at Walters's casting in this role. There is something too spare, spry and light in her demeanour, her bearing, which to my mind, never quite suited the thuggish solidity of Mrs Holland.
Other notable castings included David Harewood, playing the Bedwell twins Nicholas and Matthew, Miles Anderson briefly as Major Marchbanks, and newcomer Matt Smith (who woefully underperformed) as the cockney cheeky chappy Jim Taylor. Chloe Walker made for an appealing Adelaide.
Brian Percival, the director, did precious little innovative with what was a fairly pedestrian adapted script from Adrian Hodges, who has fared better in the past with the mini-series Charles II: The Power & the Passion and an adaptation of Dickens's David Copperfield in 1999. He has now been hired to adapt the sequel, The Shadow in the North - which is perhaps a better novel, with a stronger plotline - and I sincerely hope he produces a stronger, more coherent and more 'cinematic' screenplay. In truth, this adaptation strived to keep close to the source text, but Pullman's original is a bit of a jumble - albeit enjoyable. Hodges would maybe have been better advised to re-draft wholesale, sections of this text.
Sets, scenery and location were fine if uninspiring. This period drama is not set to win awards, that's for sure. But it made for a pleasant enough evening's viewing, even though it was far from outstanding, and never better than average.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Adaptations on the BBC over Christmas (NEWS)
Confirmed BBC TV Christmas schedules state that the adaptation of Phillip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke, starring Billie Piper, is due to air on the 27th December at 8.30pm on BBC 1. A new version of children's favourite The Wind in the Willows is also due to air on BBC 1 on New Year's Day. A remake of Bram Stoker's Dracula starring Marc Warren and Sophie Myles is also set to appear on our TV screens during the holiday period, but a definitive time and date is yet to emerge.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Mrs Dalloway a Dud (REVIEW)
REVIEW: MRS DALLOWAY, 1997
Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway is a literary masterpiece, a pioneering example of the literary device known as the stream of consciousness. We traverse the narrative via the thoughts, feelings and ruminations of Woolf's memorable characters; notably Mrs Clarissa Dalloway, a rich politician's wife and hostess; Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked former WWI soldier; and Peter Walsh, a one-time suitor to Mrs Dalloway when they were young, now returned from India amidst a furor of emotional problems. Other minor characters drift through the narrative - Clarissa's husband Richard and their daughter Elizabeth, for example. The action all takes place during one day; a day when Mrs Dalloway decides to host a party, a day when Peter returns to London, a day when poor Septimus, driven to madness by his guilt and fears, commits suicide, rather than succumb to the care of the 'doctors' he has come to fear.
Woolf's novel is a mesmerising literary experience, one I always figured would be extremely difficult to tranlsate to screen, in view of the novel's focus on mental interiority. In this regard I have been proved wrong - and in truth, this should come as no surprise. Visual media has proven repeatedly that it can display and explain multiple states of mind, of being. So in the case of this adaptation, Marlene Gorris's direction does not suffer in this regard - we never struggle to follow the story, the differing consciousnesses of Woolf's characters as their paths inadvertently criss-cross. Instead the film is plagued with an abundance of more mundane problems, suffering for the main part due to a simple lack of suspense and filmic style. Indeed, the direction here is turgid. Character development is dull.
Casting choices are poor too. Vanessa Redgrave has a breathless low-key charisma and a luminous beauty which should have been ideal for the role of Clarissa. But she gives a lifeless performance here. Similarly Rupert Graves is a fine young actor, but is woefully miscast, exuding a natural health and bonhomie in lieu of the pathetic, shambolic, tortured man Septimus has become. Natasha McElhone is better as a younger Clarissa - she certainly matches Redgrave in height and class, but also carries off a gentle innocence. Even better is Lena Headey as a gloriously vibrant and sexy Sally, Clarissa's close friend with whom she shares a tender kiss.
London provides a nicely rendered backdrop, luxuriating in its period setting of 1923. Bourton, Clarissa's country home during her youth, is bucolic, enchanting, marred only by the scowling face of Clarissa's sullen suitor Peter, played with due misery by Alan Cox. Michael Kitchen is an older Peter, though we sense he is no wiser.
This film is a tepid affair, with little to be excited over, and little to hate. Eileen Atkins, a British actress with an extensive CV, and the creator of the UK period drama series The House of Elliot, penned the script here, but it is a stale and unadventurous offering.
Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway is a literary masterpiece, a pioneering example of the literary device known as the stream of consciousness. We traverse the narrative via the thoughts, feelings and ruminations of Woolf's memorable characters; notably Mrs Clarissa Dalloway, a rich politician's wife and hostess; Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked former WWI soldier; and Peter Walsh, a one-time suitor to Mrs Dalloway when they were young, now returned from India amidst a furor of emotional problems. Other minor characters drift through the narrative - Clarissa's husband Richard and their daughter Elizabeth, for example. The action all takes place during one day; a day when Mrs Dalloway decides to host a party, a day when Peter returns to London, a day when poor Septimus, driven to madness by his guilt and fears, commits suicide, rather than succumb to the care of the 'doctors' he has come to fear.
Woolf's novel is a mesmerising literary experience, one I always figured would be extremely difficult to tranlsate to screen, in view of the novel's focus on mental interiority. In this regard I have been proved wrong - and in truth, this should come as no surprise. Visual media has proven repeatedly that it can display and explain multiple states of mind, of being. So in the case of this adaptation, Marlene Gorris's direction does not suffer in this regard - we never struggle to follow the story, the differing consciousnesses of Woolf's characters as their paths inadvertently criss-cross. Instead the film is plagued with an abundance of more mundane problems, suffering for the main part due to a simple lack of suspense and filmic style. Indeed, the direction here is turgid. Character development is dull.
Casting choices are poor too. Vanessa Redgrave has a breathless low-key charisma and a luminous beauty which should have been ideal for the role of Clarissa. But she gives a lifeless performance here. Similarly Rupert Graves is a fine young actor, but is woefully miscast, exuding a natural health and bonhomie in lieu of the pathetic, shambolic, tortured man Septimus has become. Natasha McElhone is better as a younger Clarissa - she certainly matches Redgrave in height and class, but also carries off a gentle innocence. Even better is Lena Headey as a gloriously vibrant and sexy Sally, Clarissa's close friend with whom she shares a tender kiss.
London provides a nicely rendered backdrop, luxuriating in its period setting of 1923. Bourton, Clarissa's country home during her youth, is bucolic, enchanting, marred only by the scowling face of Clarissa's sullen suitor Peter, played with due misery by Alan Cox. Michael Kitchen is an older Peter, though we sense he is no wiser.
This film is a tepid affair, with little to be excited over, and little to hate. Eileen Atkins, a British actress with an extensive CV, and the creator of the UK period drama series The House of Elliot, penned the script here, but it is a stale and unadventurous offering.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Cuaron's Children of Men: A grimly beautiful cinematic feast (REVIEW)
I posted a longer version of this review on my Blog some time ago but with the film's recent launch into the US market I thought an 'edited' revision was timely ....
Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, based on the dark and chilling PD James novel, focuses on a tragically apocalyptic world set in 2027. This is a world dogged by a fertility crisis which has meant there has not been a new baby born at all, in over eighteen years. Wars have ravaged the planet, the environment is in a funk from decades of prolonged pollution and mankind is in freefall, offered suicide packs by the government which promise a quiet and painless demise. A totalitarian British government herds all foreigners ('fugees) into concentration camps and multiple terrorist groups seemingly stage bombings for fun.
And yet, miraculously, amidst this angst and mayhem, a young woman, Kee, has fallen pregnant. The story charts Kee's desperate attempt to escape to a new life, accompanied by her protector Theo, one of fiction's unsuspecting heroes - a man who suddenly finds himself at the crossroads of history and rises to the occasion.
I should say for starters that I am a huge fan of Cuaron's work. He directed, in my opinion, the best Harry Potter film so far - by a country mile I might add. His work on Great Expectations and A Little Princess was eye-catching. And Y Tu Mama Tambien was one of my favourite films of 2001. He does not disappoint with Children of Men. Cuaron has an astonishing feel for the cinematic medium. Every single frame is crammed with visual delights. More than most directors he succinctly moves and moulds narrative with cinematographic brilliance and has a talent for deploying colour, or lack of it, when necessary. He genuinely paints a story for us with a magically illustrative visual vocabulary.
Here we are presented with a dank, rain-strewn world; a bleak, grey landscape, scarred by numerous power-stations belching thick smoke. The city streets are dirty, clostraphobic and crowded and buildings are graffiti-ed and fallen into disrepair. After all, what is the point of rebuilding a world which no-one soon will be able to enjoy?
Cuaron has elicited strong acting performances from his cast here. Amongst the minor characters, Michael Caine is simply fantastic as genial hippy Jasper - a real scene-stealer. As indeed is Peter Mullan, an unsung hero of British filmmaking, who takes on the minor rumbustious role of Sid, the corrupt border official. Claire Hope-Ashitey is fine as Kee, the first woman in eighteen years to give birth, (her name is a little too heavyhanded symbolically), and Pam Ferris as her anxious guardian Miriam is passable, but this is not her best work by any means. Julianne Moore is one of Hollywood's greatest actresses but is really rather ordinary here - although her early death is shocking and raw. Chiwetel Ejiofor is always good value but a little under-used here as the idealistic Luke.
However, most eye-catching (and heart-tugging too, if truth be told) is Clive Owen's searing, brave performance as the film's 'hero' Theo - a sourfaced, cynical everyman, who takes it upon himself to escort poor Kee to the sanctity of a ship headed for the much-fabled 'Human Project', a quasi-mythical settlement on the Azores, far away from the grime and misery of mainland Britain. To do so requires a perilous journey, avoiding trigger-happy terrorists and murderous thug-like British police officers. Their journey takes them to 'Bexhill' - a town turned notorious refugee camp, enmired in filth and despair, where a minor civil uprising is being quashed most violently by the authorities.
There is an unmistakeable, probably unavoidable messianic overtone to the piece at times, given the nature of the material. And of course there are blood-sacrifices. We know they're coming. But that doesn't make them any less powerful when they do.
There is alot to love in this film, including random but touching acts of human heroism ... and a lot to worry over. Most affecting, perhaps, was the news that Theo and Julian had lost their young child in 2008 to a flu pandemic - a death that clearly haunted and destroyed their relationship - though probably not their love.
There is a very moving moment when Jasper recounts the sorry story of their loss to Kee and Miriam - not knowing that Theo is in earshot. The camera slowly closes in on Theo's face which is stricken at the memory. Saving Kee and her child thus gives him a second chance to save a child when he could not save his own.
This is one of the best films of 2006. It confirms, yet again, Cuaron as one of the supreme directing talents working today. I rather doubt Children of Men will garner much Oscars attention - it's a little too dystopic and bleak perhaps - but Cuaron deserves recognition.
Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, based on the dark and chilling PD James novel, focuses on a tragically apocalyptic world set in 2027. This is a world dogged by a fertility crisis which has meant there has not been a new baby born at all, in over eighteen years. Wars have ravaged the planet, the environment is in a funk from decades of prolonged pollution and mankind is in freefall, offered suicide packs by the government which promise a quiet and painless demise. A totalitarian British government herds all foreigners ('fugees) into concentration camps and multiple terrorist groups seemingly stage bombings for fun.
And yet, miraculously, amidst this angst and mayhem, a young woman, Kee, has fallen pregnant. The story charts Kee's desperate attempt to escape to a new life, accompanied by her protector Theo, one of fiction's unsuspecting heroes - a man who suddenly finds himself at the crossroads of history and rises to the occasion.
I should say for starters that I am a huge fan of Cuaron's work. He directed, in my opinion, the best Harry Potter film so far - by a country mile I might add. His work on Great Expectations and A Little Princess was eye-catching. And Y Tu Mama Tambien was one of my favourite films of 2001. He does not disappoint with Children of Men. Cuaron has an astonishing feel for the cinematic medium. Every single frame is crammed with visual delights. More than most directors he succinctly moves and moulds narrative with cinematographic brilliance and has a talent for deploying colour, or lack of it, when necessary. He genuinely paints a story for us with a magically illustrative visual vocabulary.
Here we are presented with a dank, rain-strewn world; a bleak, grey landscape, scarred by numerous power-stations belching thick smoke. The city streets are dirty, clostraphobic and crowded and buildings are graffiti-ed and fallen into disrepair. After all, what is the point of rebuilding a world which no-one soon will be able to enjoy?
Cuaron has elicited strong acting performances from his cast here. Amongst the minor characters, Michael Caine is simply fantastic as genial hippy Jasper - a real scene-stealer. As indeed is Peter Mullan, an unsung hero of British filmmaking, who takes on the minor rumbustious role of Sid, the corrupt border official. Claire Hope-Ashitey is fine as Kee, the first woman in eighteen years to give birth, (her name is a little too heavyhanded symbolically), and Pam Ferris as her anxious guardian Miriam is passable, but this is not her best work by any means. Julianne Moore is one of Hollywood's greatest actresses but is really rather ordinary here - although her early death is shocking and raw. Chiwetel Ejiofor is always good value but a little under-used here as the idealistic Luke.
However, most eye-catching (and heart-tugging too, if truth be told) is Clive Owen's searing, brave performance as the film's 'hero' Theo - a sourfaced, cynical everyman, who takes it upon himself to escort poor Kee to the sanctity of a ship headed for the much-fabled 'Human Project', a quasi-mythical settlement on the Azores, far away from the grime and misery of mainland Britain. To do so requires a perilous journey, avoiding trigger-happy terrorists and murderous thug-like British police officers. Their journey takes them to 'Bexhill' - a town turned notorious refugee camp, enmired in filth and despair, where a minor civil uprising is being quashed most violently by the authorities.
There is an unmistakeable, probably unavoidable messianic overtone to the piece at times, given the nature of the material. And of course there are blood-sacrifices. We know they're coming. But that doesn't make them any less powerful when they do.
There is alot to love in this film, including random but touching acts of human heroism ... and a lot to worry over. Most affecting, perhaps, was the news that Theo and Julian had lost their young child in 2008 to a flu pandemic - a death that clearly haunted and destroyed their relationship - though probably not their love.
There is a very moving moment when Jasper recounts the sorry story of their loss to Kee and Miriam - not knowing that Theo is in earshot. The camera slowly closes in on Theo's face which is stricken at the memory. Saving Kee and her child thus gives him a second chance to save a child when he could not save his own.
This is one of the best films of 2006. It confirms, yet again, Cuaron as one of the supreme directing talents working today. I rather doubt Children of Men will garner much Oscars attention - it's a little too dystopic and bleak perhaps - but Cuaron deserves recognition.
Bond's no Bourne ... problem is, Bond's not Bond either (REVIEW)
REVIEW: CASINO ROYALE, IAN FLEMING, 2006
The latest Bond outing, Casino Royale, starring Daniel Craig in the leading role, is over-hyped rubbish. Sorry. I know it has plentiful fans and appears to have garnered critical support too, but I was thoroughly unimpressed, and even a little depressed, by the whole experience.
Let's be upfront about this: I had high hopes for this film. I really wanted Craig to succeed as the new Bond. And after the crashing disappointment which was Die Another Day, the last Brosnan Bond pic, with its absurd invisible car and cut-price CGi, I couldn't see any other direction for the franchise to go, but up. How wrong I was.
The key problem, as far as I can tell is this: the Bourne franchise, with Matt Damon as the super-cool tough guy Jason Bourne, fighting against the worst excesses of the US secret services, has knocked Bond for six. The dark, gritty froideur of Bourne and the imaginative direction from first Doug Liman and then Paul Greengrass (one of our very best directors working today in my opinion) ensured Bond looked kitsch and laboured in comparison. Bond producers were rightly concerned. Their solution, it seemed, was to emulate the success of Bourne. Big mistake!
Bond and Bourne are based on entirely different premises. James Bond is an insider, he works for Mi6, and according to Fleming, Bond's originator, Bond is Eton-educated, a man born out of British imperialist traditions. (Although in this new version of Casino Royale, it is hammered home that the new Bond is strictly State-school).Jason Bourne is an outsider of uncertain origin. He is a CIA-trained killing machine who is now intent on recovering his identity - the identity they stole from him. Thus, however maverick or disobedient he may be, Bond is ultimately on government pay, whereas Bourne is a social outcast, unearthing the dark and sinister secrets underpinning the State - and are the primary source of the best paranoid conspiracy theories, which epitomise the uncertain, fearful world we live in today. From this point of view, Bond is pretty much stuffed.
Casino Royale is even further hampered by the producers' inability to string together a decent plot-line. Yes, yes, we know this is now post 9/11 ... Judi Dench's M tells us this in the starkest terms possible. But this has little effect on plot detail it seems. Even the rise of extremist Islamic terrorism hasn't informed the new look Bond, in spite of being viewed world over as the major terrorist force of our times. This is remarkable when one considers how terrorism is not shied away from in similar spy franchises. Take the BBC's impressive Spooks for example: in Series Five the Mi5 crew tackled Islamic terrorists, radical Christian terrorists, pro-environmental terrorists, Mossad (twice), a genocidal African leader, a Serbian Mi6 plant and foiled an ultra-right corporate coup of the British government.
So what do we get with Casino Royale? A muddled narrative which focuses on financial fraud - namely fixing stock prices by means of sponsoring terrorist actions. Which terrorists? Well, we never learn this vital piece of information.
Our 'Bond Villain' is the money-man for these unnamed forces of evil - played here by Mads Mikkelson, complete with a creepy bleeding tear-duct and a Ventolin inhaler - who has lost $150m and needs to recoup it in a poker game, staged at a luxury hotel in Montenegro. Wow whoopee .... edge of the seat stuff ... I was almost crying with boredom. The plot revolved, seemingly, around this $150m, and Bond's sharpest card-playing tactics to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. Now I hate to be flippant - but let's face it, $150m is diddly-squat in the arena of global terrorism and the 'war' on terror.
OK, so we have a poor storyline - but can the direction, the character development, the action sequences at least ensure an entertaining, gripping ride of a movie? Can it heck! Casino Royale lacked suspense, lacked passion, lacked interest. Well, to be fair. The opening scenes, Bond's first kills, were fantastic. And then there was an exciting high wire crane-chase with Bond hunting down a bomb-maker in Madagascar. All good stuff.
But it went dramatically downhill from there.
We had a mildly riveting action sequence at Miami airport with Bond trying to save a new Skyfleet super-plane from being blown up by the bad guys. And then Bond was dispatched to Montenegro and the interminable poker game at the heart of the film, which was punctuated, mercifully, by an occasional welcome bout of unbridled violence.
This casino equence culminated in a much-hyped torture scene which was a bit of a snore really, and then there was an endless coda in Venice, when Bond discovers the true perfidy of Vesper Lynd, the slink Missy he has fallen for. Vesper Lynd was played by the stylish French actress Eva Green, whose plummy British vowels sounded like she was gobbling clumps of broken china and had a bad cold to boot, poor dear. Her natural good looks were swamped by swathes of makeup, lashings of thick black kohl, as though she was auditioning for a role as vampish temptress in a 1950s Film Noir. I was wholly unmoved by the Bond/Lynd romance.
As for Bond himself. This was the million dollar question. Could Daniel Craig overcome his critics? In a word, no ... Except, yes. The critics have positively wet themselves with surprised glee, admiration and probably contrition at Craig's Bond. This universal acclaim has declared him to be the best Bond since Connery. How can this be??
I seriously wonder if I am living on an alternative planet ... Craig's Bond was mediocre, at best (and believe me, I so, so wanted this to work and was pretty cheesed-off at the whiny media Craig-bashing pre-Casino Royale). His primary facial expression was a strangely screwed-up, pursed-lip 'thing' which riled me throughout. His voice is, well, deep, male ... but almost entirely flat and toneless. The man, as depicted here, is devoid of personal charisma. Worst of all, he is humourless.
OK so we know the famous Bond 'quips' were a non-starter in this all-new, oh-so-serious Bond ... well Bond producers, scriptwriters et al, get over yourselves! We need a Bond with a 'twinkle' - even while dispatching the villains with calculated, sociopathic violence. Bond's wit is an essential ingredient of 'BOND'. Jason Bourne, of course, does not need to be funny. That is not his style, which is born out of anguish, pain, a sense of loss. But then again, this is not Bourne. I'll just repeat that. THIS IS NOT BOURNE.
Craig, in fairness, was given precious little to work with. He is a very fine actor. I would never dispute that. But in Casino Royale, the script is risible. During the interminable poker-game we actually get 'commentary' from one of the secondary characters, Mathis (Giancarlo Gianninni). And still, the game doesn't make sense.
On the plus side, the locations are magnificent. Montenegro is a combination here of the Czech Republic and Italy's spectacular Lake Como, and the Bahamas look fabulous. As a deluxe tourist brochure Casino Royale is at its very best.
In sum this is a disappointing film. I am now extremely disheartened and alarmed for the future of the Bond series. I realise my take on this film is completely out of step with the general concensus, but I strongly suspect that there will be more naysayers over time, once the dust has settled and the film hits renewed scrutiny when the DVD is released.
I was surprised to see that Martin Campbell had directed this film so very poorly - I loved his Goldeneye. That film was outlandish, silly, replete with some remarkably hammy acting, (yes, I'm speaking of Sean Bean), but boy, was it thrilling! And it had characters we cared about (Izabella Scorupco as Natalya), laughed at (Alan Cummings as Boris, Robbie Coltrane as Zukovosky) and loved to hate (Famke Janssen as the inimitable thigh-crusher assassin Xenia Onatopp). And how ridiculous but cool was it to see Pierce Brosnan driving that huge great tank through the streets of St Petersburg?
But this seems far too much like good, old-fashioned audience-pleasing fun for the new look po-faced Bond.
The latest Bond outing, Casino Royale, starring Daniel Craig in the leading role, is over-hyped rubbish. Sorry. I know it has plentiful fans and appears to have garnered critical support too, but I was thoroughly unimpressed, and even a little depressed, by the whole experience.
Let's be upfront about this: I had high hopes for this film. I really wanted Craig to succeed as the new Bond. And after the crashing disappointment which was Die Another Day, the last Brosnan Bond pic, with its absurd invisible car and cut-price CGi, I couldn't see any other direction for the franchise to go, but up. How wrong I was.
The key problem, as far as I can tell is this: the Bourne franchise, with Matt Damon as the super-cool tough guy Jason Bourne, fighting against the worst excesses of the US secret services, has knocked Bond for six. The dark, gritty froideur of Bourne and the imaginative direction from first Doug Liman and then Paul Greengrass (one of our very best directors working today in my opinion) ensured Bond looked kitsch and laboured in comparison. Bond producers were rightly concerned. Their solution, it seemed, was to emulate the success of Bourne. Big mistake!
Bond and Bourne are based on entirely different premises. James Bond is an insider, he works for Mi6, and according to Fleming, Bond's originator, Bond is Eton-educated, a man born out of British imperialist traditions. (Although in this new version of Casino Royale, it is hammered home that the new Bond is strictly State-school).Jason Bourne is an outsider of uncertain origin. He is a CIA-trained killing machine who is now intent on recovering his identity - the identity they stole from him. Thus, however maverick or disobedient he may be, Bond is ultimately on government pay, whereas Bourne is a social outcast, unearthing the dark and sinister secrets underpinning the State - and are the primary source of the best paranoid conspiracy theories, which epitomise the uncertain, fearful world we live in today. From this point of view, Bond is pretty much stuffed.
Casino Royale is even further hampered by the producers' inability to string together a decent plot-line. Yes, yes, we know this is now post 9/11 ... Judi Dench's M tells us this in the starkest terms possible. But this has little effect on plot detail it seems. Even the rise of extremist Islamic terrorism hasn't informed the new look Bond, in spite of being viewed world over as the major terrorist force of our times. This is remarkable when one considers how terrorism is not shied away from in similar spy franchises. Take the BBC's impressive Spooks for example: in Series Five the Mi5 crew tackled Islamic terrorists, radical Christian terrorists, pro-environmental terrorists, Mossad (twice), a genocidal African leader, a Serbian Mi6 plant and foiled an ultra-right corporate coup of the British government.
So what do we get with Casino Royale? A muddled narrative which focuses on financial fraud - namely fixing stock prices by means of sponsoring terrorist actions. Which terrorists? Well, we never learn this vital piece of information.
Our 'Bond Villain' is the money-man for these unnamed forces of evil - played here by Mads Mikkelson, complete with a creepy bleeding tear-duct and a Ventolin inhaler - who has lost $150m and needs to recoup it in a poker game, staged at a luxury hotel in Montenegro. Wow whoopee .... edge of the seat stuff ... I was almost crying with boredom. The plot revolved, seemingly, around this $150m, and Bond's sharpest card-playing tactics to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. Now I hate to be flippant - but let's face it, $150m is diddly-squat in the arena of global terrorism and the 'war' on terror.
OK, so we have a poor storyline - but can the direction, the character development, the action sequences at least ensure an entertaining, gripping ride of a movie? Can it heck! Casino Royale lacked suspense, lacked passion, lacked interest. Well, to be fair. The opening scenes, Bond's first kills, were fantastic. And then there was an exciting high wire crane-chase with Bond hunting down a bomb-maker in Madagascar. All good stuff.
But it went dramatically downhill from there.
We had a mildly riveting action sequence at Miami airport with Bond trying to save a new Skyfleet super-plane from being blown up by the bad guys. And then Bond was dispatched to Montenegro and the interminable poker game at the heart of the film, which was punctuated, mercifully, by an occasional welcome bout of unbridled violence.
This casino equence culminated in a much-hyped torture scene which was a bit of a snore really, and then there was an endless coda in Venice, when Bond discovers the true perfidy of Vesper Lynd, the slink Missy he has fallen for. Vesper Lynd was played by the stylish French actress Eva Green, whose plummy British vowels sounded like she was gobbling clumps of broken china and had a bad cold to boot, poor dear. Her natural good looks were swamped by swathes of makeup, lashings of thick black kohl, as though she was auditioning for a role as vampish temptress in a 1950s Film Noir. I was wholly unmoved by the Bond/Lynd romance.
As for Bond himself. This was the million dollar question. Could Daniel Craig overcome his critics? In a word, no ... Except, yes. The critics have positively wet themselves with surprised glee, admiration and probably contrition at Craig's Bond. This universal acclaim has declared him to be the best Bond since Connery. How can this be??
I seriously wonder if I am living on an alternative planet ... Craig's Bond was mediocre, at best (and believe me, I so, so wanted this to work and was pretty cheesed-off at the whiny media Craig-bashing pre-Casino Royale). His primary facial expression was a strangely screwed-up, pursed-lip 'thing' which riled me throughout. His voice is, well, deep, male ... but almost entirely flat and toneless. The man, as depicted here, is devoid of personal charisma. Worst of all, he is humourless.
OK so we know the famous Bond 'quips' were a non-starter in this all-new, oh-so-serious Bond ... well Bond producers, scriptwriters et al, get over yourselves! We need a Bond with a 'twinkle' - even while dispatching the villains with calculated, sociopathic violence. Bond's wit is an essential ingredient of 'BOND'. Jason Bourne, of course, does not need to be funny. That is not his style, which is born out of anguish, pain, a sense of loss. But then again, this is not Bourne. I'll just repeat that. THIS IS NOT BOURNE.
Craig, in fairness, was given precious little to work with. He is a very fine actor. I would never dispute that. But in Casino Royale, the script is risible. During the interminable poker-game we actually get 'commentary' from one of the secondary characters, Mathis (Giancarlo Gianninni). And still, the game doesn't make sense.
On the plus side, the locations are magnificent. Montenegro is a combination here of the Czech Republic and Italy's spectacular Lake Como, and the Bahamas look fabulous. As a deluxe tourist brochure Casino Royale is at its very best.
In sum this is a disappointing film. I am now extremely disheartened and alarmed for the future of the Bond series. I realise my take on this film is completely out of step with the general concensus, but I strongly suspect that there will be more naysayers over time, once the dust has settled and the film hits renewed scrutiny when the DVD is released.
I was surprised to see that Martin Campbell had directed this film so very poorly - I loved his Goldeneye. That film was outlandish, silly, replete with some remarkably hammy acting, (yes, I'm speaking of Sean Bean), but boy, was it thrilling! And it had characters we cared about (Izabella Scorupco as Natalya), laughed at (Alan Cummings as Boris, Robbie Coltrane as Zukovosky) and loved to hate (Famke Janssen as the inimitable thigh-crusher assassin Xenia Onatopp). And how ridiculous but cool was it to see Pierce Brosnan driving that huge great tank through the streets of St Petersburg?
But this seems far too much like good, old-fashioned audience-pleasing fun for the new look po-faced Bond.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Rupert Everett ups the star factor in his chilly rendition of Sherlock Holmes - (REVIEW)
REVIEW: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE SILK STOCKING, ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, BBC 1, 2004
Continuing my trawl through past adaptations ....
In 2004 the BBC aired a tele-film, ;">Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking, starring Rupert Everett as the lugubrious detective and Ian Hart as his avuncular sidekick Dr Watson. The production was directed by Simon Cellan Jones with a script from Alan Cubitt.
Overall this is an enjoyable tele-film, although it sadly wilts a little in the closing stages. It's a small wonder this was not re-commissioned, most especially given its sprinkling of genuine stardust through the spindly, handsome form and patrician features of Rupert Everett in the title role. Rupert Everett, to my mind, is one of the UK's best quality celebrity actor exports. The BBC should have coddled him, treasured him, and ensured he signed on for a longer contract than a single tele-film.
His Holmes is tall, angular, slickly feline with a cool demeanour. His pallid complexion and weary, crinkled eyelids denote his perpetual state of ennui - and, more importantly, his drug addiction. This Holmes rarely eats, rarely sleeps ... he is a quasi-mythological being, a thing of the spirits, of darkness, of inner stillness, of strange, unseen fluxes in mood and moment. On the outside he is acid-tongued and bitchy, and, one suspects, misogynistic too. His sometime companion Dr Watson, played here by Ian Hart, is remarkably patient, stoically enduring all sorts of ill-treatment from Holmes, who singlemindedly pursues his detective work with obsessive zeal.
Cellan Jones's London is an evocative place; mysterious, haunting, sinister, wreathed in thick white fog for most of the action. A serial killer stalks, abducts, and kills his prey amidst these murky conditions. His victims are the teenage daughters of the great and good of the land; the aristocracy. And the killer is revealed to be driven by deviant sexual fetishism. His mode of murder is distinctive and telling. He strangles his victims with a silk stocking, having forced the other stocking down the poor girl's gullet. Cellan Jones depicts these abductions with their dire consequences and the effects of the anguish which they understandably engender with assurance and panache.
Similarly effective are the early scenes showing Holmes to regularly haunt the Chinese opium dens of London. This is a cold, grey world, a fuggy dream-state, riddled with uncertainties, fears, paranoid insecurities. The ambience is amplified by the tele-film's hugely effective musical score, which is both thrilling and chilling throughout.
It is unfortunate then that after a lengthy period of atmospheric eeriness, this tele-film eventually falls victim to the rather clunky mechanics of its own plot resolution. Holmes is at his best when acting by instinct, as he creeps cat-like around London's lofty rooftops, tracing his killer's footsteps. But once the police force is involved, once a suspect is found, there is a harsh rupturing of the mood Cellan Jones, and perhaps more crucially, Everett's portrayal of Holmes have skillfully brewed.
Everett's best 'interactions' are with Helen McCrory, one of Britain's finest yet sadly underrated actresses, who plays Watson's American psychoanalyst fiancee. Holmes is determined to be disdainful of her, but succumbs to her stinging wit and powerful intellect. Their exchanges, especially when first meeting, are electric, almost cerebrally 'sexual.'
(Spoilers coming up). The climactic scenes are played out in a candle-lit basement, the murderer's lair, where one young girl Roberta (Perdita Byrne), who has been deliberately deployed as 'bait' by Holmes, has been snatched. However, we have recently discovered a strange and rather incredible twist - Holmes's detection work on this case has seemingly been hampered by the murderer having an identical twin, who covers for his dastardly deeds. Somehow, Holmes informs us, he suspected this all along – although just how, we have no idea, which is the obvious downside to his self-contained, pensive persona. Nor do we get any inkling, any time soon, as the plot rushes full steam ahead to its final denouement, which sadly lacks excitement, as one is instead left ruminating the intricate workings of the plot rather than simply succumbing to the dramatic events unfolding on-screen.
Continuing my trawl through past adaptations ....
In 2004 the BBC aired a tele-film, ;">Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking, starring Rupert Everett as the lugubrious detective and Ian Hart as his avuncular sidekick Dr Watson. The production was directed by Simon Cellan Jones with a script from Alan Cubitt.
Overall this is an enjoyable tele-film, although it sadly wilts a little in the closing stages. It's a small wonder this was not re-commissioned, most especially given its sprinkling of genuine stardust through the spindly, handsome form and patrician features of Rupert Everett in the title role. Rupert Everett, to my mind, is one of the UK's best quality celebrity actor exports. The BBC should have coddled him, treasured him, and ensured he signed on for a longer contract than a single tele-film.
His Holmes is tall, angular, slickly feline with a cool demeanour. His pallid complexion and weary, crinkled eyelids denote his perpetual state of ennui - and, more importantly, his drug addiction. This Holmes rarely eats, rarely sleeps ... he is a quasi-mythological being, a thing of the spirits, of darkness, of inner stillness, of strange, unseen fluxes in mood and moment. On the outside he is acid-tongued and bitchy, and, one suspects, misogynistic too. His sometime companion Dr Watson, played here by Ian Hart, is remarkably patient, stoically enduring all sorts of ill-treatment from Holmes, who singlemindedly pursues his detective work with obsessive zeal.
Cellan Jones's London is an evocative place; mysterious, haunting, sinister, wreathed in thick white fog for most of the action. A serial killer stalks, abducts, and kills his prey amidst these murky conditions. His victims are the teenage daughters of the great and good of the land; the aristocracy. And the killer is revealed to be driven by deviant sexual fetishism. His mode of murder is distinctive and telling. He strangles his victims with a silk stocking, having forced the other stocking down the poor girl's gullet. Cellan Jones depicts these abductions with their dire consequences and the effects of the anguish which they understandably engender with assurance and panache.
Similarly effective are the early scenes showing Holmes to regularly haunt the Chinese opium dens of London. This is a cold, grey world, a fuggy dream-state, riddled with uncertainties, fears, paranoid insecurities. The ambience is amplified by the tele-film's hugely effective musical score, which is both thrilling and chilling throughout.
It is unfortunate then that after a lengthy period of atmospheric eeriness, this tele-film eventually falls victim to the rather clunky mechanics of its own plot resolution. Holmes is at his best when acting by instinct, as he creeps cat-like around London's lofty rooftops, tracing his killer's footsteps. But once the police force is involved, once a suspect is found, there is a harsh rupturing of the mood Cellan Jones, and perhaps more crucially, Everett's portrayal of Holmes have skillfully brewed.
Everett's best 'interactions' are with Helen McCrory, one of Britain's finest yet sadly underrated actresses, who plays Watson's American psychoanalyst fiancee. Holmes is determined to be disdainful of her, but succumbs to her stinging wit and powerful intellect. Their exchanges, especially when first meeting, are electric, almost cerebrally 'sexual.'
(Spoilers coming up). The climactic scenes are played out in a candle-lit basement, the murderer's lair, where one young girl Roberta (Perdita Byrne), who has been deliberately deployed as 'bait' by Holmes, has been snatched. However, we have recently discovered a strange and rather incredible twist - Holmes's detection work on this case has seemingly been hampered by the murderer having an identical twin, who covers for his dastardly deeds. Somehow, Holmes informs us, he suspected this all along – although just how, we have no idea, which is the obvious downside to his self-contained, pensive persona. Nor do we get any inkling, any time soon, as the plot rushes full steam ahead to its final denouement, which sadly lacks excitement, as one is instead left ruminating the intricate workings of the plot rather than simply succumbing to the dramatic events unfolding on-screen.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
ITV to remake Wuthering Heights
ITV's penchant for period drama continues apace with news that Mammoth Productions has been commissioned to make a new three-hour version of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights for ITV1. Peter Bowker who penned the BBC's Blackpool is the screenwriter and Damien Timmer is the producer. ITV produced Wuthering Heights in 1998, starring Sarah Smart and Robery Kavanah. The new Wuthering Heights is due to broadcast in early 2008. There has not been any casting news as yet, but I can see Rebecca Hall or Hayley Atwell making a great Catherine. Rufus Sewell is probably a little too old now to play Heathcliff - such a shame. He would have been awesome.
Big buzz begins on Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix
The Internet is throbbing with buzz on the new Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix teaser trailer, currently attached to theatrical screenings of Happy Feet (you know, the annoying one with the cutesy dancing penguins) which also debuted online at the Happy Feet website earlier this week. More involving perhaps, has been a HBO preview special with stacks of extra film footage and mini 'star' interviews, which can be accessed via HPANA and Mugglenet. Talking of 'mini' stars, I also had a gander at an E! Special, (again see Mugglenet), which had the E!Online reporter on-set at Leavesden Studios interviewing Daniel Radcliffe. Is it my imagination or is Daniel Radcliffe really, really short? I was kind of shocked when he was mentioned as being seventeen years old, most especially as the reporter, who did not seem unduly big I might add, literally TOWERED over Radcliffe.
Anyway, as to the trailer/footage material ... damn, this looks good. Big on atmospherics, some nicely structured scenes, great sets and I actually like Daniel Radcliffe's super-short haircut, which appears to have ignited an odd degree of controversy I've noted on Harry Potter fan-sites. Oh well.
I am a big fan of David Yates so I expect nothing less than excellent from him. And Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is Rowling's second best book in my opinion, after Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (which was also the best Harry Potter film to date). I am looking forward to this one, which is due for release next July.
There does not seem to be any news yet on the next Harry Potter director, although the longer we DON'T know, the more likely it seems to me that Yates has, or is very soon, to sign on to direct. As much as I like Yates, I would be disappointed. I really like how each installment in the franchise is a different director's vision.
Anyway, as to the trailer/footage material ... damn, this looks good. Big on atmospherics, some nicely structured scenes, great sets and I actually like Daniel Radcliffe's super-short haircut, which appears to have ignited an odd degree of controversy I've noted on Harry Potter fan-sites. Oh well.
I am a big fan of David Yates so I expect nothing less than excellent from him. And Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is Rowling's second best book in my opinion, after Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (which was also the best Harry Potter film to date). I am looking forward to this one, which is due for release next July.
There does not seem to be any news yet on the next Harry Potter director, although the longer we DON'T know, the more likely it seems to me that Yates has, or is very soon, to sign on to direct. As much as I like Yates, I would be disappointed. I really like how each installment in the franchise is a different director's vision.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Fingersmith 2005: Victorian potboiler a triumph for the BBC (REVIEW)
REVIEW: FINGERSMITH, SARAH WATERS, BBC, 2005
This weekend I was most impressed with Fingersmith, the 2005 BBC adaptation of Sarah Waters's Victorian drama directed by Aisling Walsh and adapted by Peter Ransley. I didn't see it on the BBC when it first aired so I hired the DVD this weekend. Sally Hawkins and Elaine Cassidy put in excellent performances as Sue Trinder and Maud Lilly respectively, the heroines who fall in love and soon discover that their past, present and future is inextricably linked. Rupert Evans was also a real gem in this production as the charming, chilling and cruel Richard 'Gentleman' Rivers and Charles Dance as Maud's sinister uncle Mr Lilly was good value, as always. Imelda Staunton hammed it up as emotionally over-wrought trickster Mrs Sucksby.
This adaptation benefited from having a truly gripping yarn to tell. There was no slack here; no flabby narrative which could have been trimmed. This was very well-honed throughout. At one point, the narrative is re-told, but from a different character perspective, casting an alternative light on plot proceedings. This was orchestrated well and also proved to be a genuine twisty surprise. It helped in this regard, I guess, that I had never read Fingersmith as a novel - a situation I will be amending, asap.
Locations, sets and costumes - all were serviceable. I particularly enjoyed the compelling scenes set in London. Waters's rendition of London has a strongly Dickensian flavour. This is a city where human misery was plentiful and moral corruption was rife. Waters is meticulous in her historical research, which certainly helps to embellish the plot. Here, the public ceremony and commensurate voracious public interest attached to hanging is highlighted, as is the misogynistic practice of locking away unwanted wives in mental asylums.
The lesbian love-scenes between the two leads attracted a lot of media attention when first aired; much of it lewd and unnecessary. The chemistry between Cassidy and Hawkins is tangible and touching - there is a very real sense that they fall in love, a far cry from some of the more tawdry media comments and reviews at the time. Both are very fine actresses, and I now look forward to seeing Hawkins play Anne Elliott in next year's Persuasion.
Hawkins also starred in Waters's Tipping the Velvet, another BBC adaptation adapted by Andrew Davies in 2002, alongside Rachael Stirling and Keeley Hawes. This drama was also remembered primarily it seemed for its lesbian content, but was another fine BBC period adaptation. However, in terms of plot suspense and gripping narrative, I consider Fingersmith the superior production.
This weekend I was most impressed with Fingersmith, the 2005 BBC adaptation of Sarah Waters's Victorian drama directed by Aisling Walsh and adapted by Peter Ransley. I didn't see it on the BBC when it first aired so I hired the DVD this weekend. Sally Hawkins and Elaine Cassidy put in excellent performances as Sue Trinder and Maud Lilly respectively, the heroines who fall in love and soon discover that their past, present and future is inextricably linked. Rupert Evans was also a real gem in this production as the charming, chilling and cruel Richard 'Gentleman' Rivers and Charles Dance as Maud's sinister uncle Mr Lilly was good value, as always. Imelda Staunton hammed it up as emotionally over-wrought trickster Mrs Sucksby.
This adaptation benefited from having a truly gripping yarn to tell. There was no slack here; no flabby narrative which could have been trimmed. This was very well-honed throughout. At one point, the narrative is re-told, but from a different character perspective, casting an alternative light on plot proceedings. This was orchestrated well and also proved to be a genuine twisty surprise. It helped in this regard, I guess, that I had never read Fingersmith as a novel - a situation I will be amending, asap.
Locations, sets and costumes - all were serviceable. I particularly enjoyed the compelling scenes set in London. Waters's rendition of London has a strongly Dickensian flavour. This is a city where human misery was plentiful and moral corruption was rife. Waters is meticulous in her historical research, which certainly helps to embellish the plot. Here, the public ceremony and commensurate voracious public interest attached to hanging is highlighted, as is the misogynistic practice of locking away unwanted wives in mental asylums.
The lesbian love-scenes between the two leads attracted a lot of media attention when first aired; much of it lewd and unnecessary. The chemistry between Cassidy and Hawkins is tangible and touching - there is a very real sense that they fall in love, a far cry from some of the more tawdry media comments and reviews at the time. Both are very fine actresses, and I now look forward to seeing Hawkins play Anne Elliott in next year's Persuasion.
Hawkins also starred in Waters's Tipping the Velvet, another BBC adaptation adapted by Andrew Davies in 2002, alongside Rachael Stirling and Keeley Hawes. This drama was also remembered primarily it seemed for its lesbian content, but was another fine BBC period adaptation. However, in terms of plot suspense and gripping narrative, I consider Fingersmith the superior production.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
New pics from Persuasion shoot (NEWS)
Austenblog and Hello Magazine are featuring photos taken during the filming of ITV's new production of Persuasion on a wind-swept Cob at Lyme Regis. Rupert Penry Jones looks especially wonderful as Captain Wentworth. I reckon his portrayal of one of Austen's romantic heroes is going to win him a legion of salivating female fans come Spring next year - adding no doubt to his already sizeable fanbase for his exemplary work as Adam in BBC spy series Spooks. I must admit the finale of Series Five last night was less onerous than usual, simply knowing that Rupert would be back on our TV screens in the not too distant future.
Just to add, so far the 'buzz' on these Austen adaptations has mostly focused on Persuasion ... not sure if that is the Rupert factor, but it's possible. Mind you, I expect that once the Billy Piper-in-costume-drama bandwagon gets rolling, there'll be a sharp ramping up of the anticipation factor for Mansfield Park too. This should be sooner rather than later, in view of the 2006 transmission date for her period drama The Ruby in the Smoke, based on the Phillip Pullman novel.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Atonement pics (NEWS)
Keira Knightley fansite walkingindaydreams.com is displaying a portfolio of shots from the Joe Wright-directed adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, due to hit cinemas in 2007. The film is set to star Keira Knightley, James McAvoy and Romola Garai.
In other news, Knightley has been reported by Baz Bamigoye in The Daily Mail as wishing to quite the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, now that she has stopped filmed for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, due to premiere May 2007. There has been neither confirmation or denial of this rumour from Disney - unlike Disney's reaction to Internet gossip that co-star Orlando Bloom was set to drop out from any future films in the series.
In other news, Knightley has been reported by Baz Bamigoye in The Daily Mail as wishing to quite the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, now that she has stopped filmed for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, due to premiere May 2007. There has been neither confirmation or denial of this rumour from Disney - unlike Disney's reaction to Internet gossip that co-star Orlando Bloom was set to drop out from any future films in the series.
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