Spotlight

Spotlight's journalists-uncover-major-scandal-and-it's-all-based-on-a-true-story premise inevitably reminds of All The President's Men, although Spotlight's topic is the altogether murkier, skin-crawling and vein-popping anger-inducing uncovering of the widespread, decades-long issue of Catholic priests abusing children within their parishes - and the subsequent cover-up of this by the Church's most senior authorities, on many occasions simply allowing the priests to be moved to another area (and therefore giving complicit approval for the abuse to carry on until it looked as though the whistle would be blown again). No funny Watergate and Tricky Dicky Nixon style jokes to be had from this one, then.

However, despite the stomach-churning details of Spotlight being the sort of subject that might get me marching up and down in front of my local church waving protesting placards and the like on a  particularly energetic day, director Tom McCarthy and screenwriter Josh Singer wisely decide to sidestep overblown emotion, tears, and histrionics for a straightforward re-telling of how the Spotlight investigative team at the Boston Globe blew the lid off the scandal in the early 2000's as they pieced together various anecdotes, documented evidence, victim testimonies and more and eventually went on to claim the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. The small, uncomfortable details of the abuse as revealed by a range of differing victims is enough to make us squirm and feel uncomfortable; what is equally shocking is the numbers and scale of the cover-up - hearing it re-iterated again here in stark fact drills home the sheer horror of the situation, the arrogance and audacity of those in positions of power who abused the trust of their communities, and the complicity of the wider community in turning a blind eye to such a repugnant and widespread scandal.

From a cinematic point-of-view, Spotlight does not try any spectacular tricks or effects in order to tell its rather grim story - and I thought that to do so would feel rather like a disservice to many of the surviving victims of the abuse. Instead it gets on with its business coolly and unfussily, drawing us in with both revulsion and fascination after a fairly slow opening 15 minutes and eventually gripping us as the team peel back further layers of corruption and appalling behaviour by those 'in the know' - in this sense, it's rather like a well-written broadsheet journalistic piece- not intended to win prizes for its style and showiness, but drawing us in with facts and an overwhelming urge to find out just what happens in the end - the lure of the headline (often gruesome, equally often compelling) pushing us on to read more.

The ensemble cast is uniformly excellent, and McCarthy smartly does not depict any of them as superheroes or guardians of journalistic morality and integrity, just a bunch of normal people trying to do their jobs and get the truth out there. I was particularly impressed with the work of Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams, who brings her usual warmth, likeability and underrated acting skills to the role of Sacha Pfeiffer - it's a shame that her unshowy part didn't stand a chance in the Supporting Actress Oscar category this year against Alicia Vikander in a role for The Danish Girl that clearly should have been nominated as lead.

Well-crafted, straightforward, to-the-point and quietly powerful, Spotlight's beating of The Revenant to the Best Picture Oscar this year may have surprised many, but it is by no means an unworthy winner.

12 Years A Slave

This is a film about almost unbearable hardship and suffering, but it's an essential watch, if not one I could probably bear to stomach a repeat viewing of. It is based on the true story of Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free African-American man who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, and the trials he endures when sold to sadistic plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender).

The film has a powerful and obvious message about the cruelty and dehumanising effects of slavery. I would defy any decent person not to feel upset and angry about the horrors they have just witnessed when the credits roll. And although the cynic in me felt at the beginning that the film would be preaching to the converted, I ended it convinced that this was a movie that needed to be made, because unlike the racism-lite of countless Hollywood pictures (The Help immediately sprang to mind), 12 Years A Slave does not flinch away from the repugnant and brutal facts of the slave trade and life on the plantations for many black people prior to emancipation. It's the matter of fact manner that director Steve McQueen frames each shot and expertly films each scene that adds to the film's power: it doesn't tactfully look to one side, it forces us to examine the actions of the slave owners and their effects close-up, and is as compelling and fascinating as it is repulsive.

A large portion of the credit here should go to cinematographer Sean Bobbitt and McQueen, who showcases talent and skill not just as a director but as an artist with an innate sense of how to create mood and atmosphere with each and every shot; frame after frame always felt carefully chosen, perfectly paced, and beautifully and subtly shot. For make no mistake, 12 Years A Slave is a beautiful film in its own way; so many of the scenes looked like a painting by a rural landscape artist like John Constable (or there may be a more obvious artistic reference, Constable was the first one that sprang to my mind as I watched) - sunny, easy depictions of the sun glinting on to a vast cotton field, or laundry hanging between trees. But the difference is in the nasty detail McQueen constantly introduces into these idyllic-seeming pictures - an overseer drives suddenly and eerily though the fields with a whip; the rest of the folk on the plantation go about their business as Solomon hangs desperately from a tree. This invasion of brutality into beauty is handled superbly by McQueen; time and again you admire his breath-taking visuals and shot choices before the harsh reality of the plot drags you away from the sun-drenched, almost dream-like imagery.

Ejiofor plays Solomon with a quiet and unbreakable dignity; his horror and breakdown during the film's pivotal whipping scene is entirely convincing and heart-breaking in the manner that Ejiofor underplays it. The only grumble I have is that the film doesn't give us enough of an idea of Solomon's life and personality prior to his kidnapping - this is skimmed over within the first 15 minutes; at times, it did feel as though Solomon is just moved from one awful situation to another, with little time to explore the man beneath the surface or the nightmare he found himself trapped in. Fassbender is mesmerising as the sleazy, revolting Epps; Sarah Paulson equally good as his vile wife. A strong supporting cast including the always excellent (and perennially under-rated) Paul Dano and Alfre Woodard also put in commendable, well-crafted work.

However, it is newcomer Lupita Nyong'o as Patsey that provides the film with its haunting and memorable heart. Patsey is the unfortunate victim of unwanted attentions and cruel behaviours from both Epps and his vindictive wife. No mere symbol for the vast number of female slaves mistreated during this shameful period of American history, Nyong'o imbues Patsey with a captivating charm, dignity, alternatively despairing and hopeful but always a real person with a real hurt and sense of lasting pain behind her eyes. Remarkable all the more due to Nyong'o's limited on-screen dialogue, her performance deservedly won her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for that year.

Any thoughts I'd had that Hollywood had awarded 12 Years A Slave with the Best Film Oscar to pat itself on the back for rewarding something Terribly Important and Issues Driven and Oscar Baity were banished as I sat in stunned silence as the film finally reached a happy(ish) conclusion. Brilliantly shot, expertly directed, shocking, harrowing and with a weighty central message, this is a thoroughly deserving Oscar winner, although enduring its barbarism again may be more than I can bear.

Birdman, Or (The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance)

I'm yet to see Spotlight, the most recent recipient of the Academy Award for Best Film, so thought I'd kick off my reviews of Oscar winning films with the previous winner before I completely forgot about it - because that is precisely what I have been dying to do ever since I danced a jig of joy and relief when the end credits rolled on this tiresome, pretentious rubbish masquerading as a comedy and satire on Hollywood.

Michael Keaton, famed as Bruce Wayne/Batman a generation ago in Tim Burton's dark, gothic, slyly comic take on the superhero, plays lead here as Riggan Thomson, an actor famed for playing dark, slyly comic superhero Birdman a generation ago. Geddit? Now he's trying to revitalise his non-existent career by writing/directing/starring in a Broadway play based on a Raymond Carver short story. Unfortunately for Riggan, he's haunted by his old Birdman alter-ego, which mocks and undermines his confidence at every turn. Riggan may also be able to perform various superhero-esque feats such as telekinesis and levitation himself. Or is that Birdman again, mocking Riggan with delusions of these feats in his own head? Does anyone know? Do we care?

Riggan is joined on the adaptation by a cast of 'colourful' sidekicks including lead actress Lesley (Naomi Watts), her egotistical, smarmy but highly rated actor boyfriend Mike (Edward Norton) and his own daughter (Emma Stone) who's just out of rehab and working as Riggan's assistant. There's not so much a coherent plot as a sequence of long-winded, dull dialogues between characters on acting, the shallowness and fickleness of the Hollywood scene, and so on, interspersed with comic scenes (Keaton fights Norton while Norton is in his underwear! Keaton gets locked out of the theatre and has to walk through Times Square in his underwear!) that are not just forced and clichéd, but about as funny as Ebola.

The film reaches its nadir when Riggan bumps into influential critic Tabitha (Lindsay Duncan), who promises to trash his play without even seeing it, due to her hatred of Hollywood celebrities. Clearly, director Alejandro G. Iñárritu seems to have used this scene to work out some anger towards what he perceives as unwarranted criticism of his prior work. Well, sorry, Mr. Iñárritu, but I sat through Birdman from start to end, and have no hesitation in trashing it because it is quite simply a bad film, and one that irritated me in all manner of different ways.

Birdman is the sort of film that critics love, and Hollywood loves to reward, because it comments on and ruminates on and even pokes fun at acting and the nature of acting and the system that chews up actors and spits them out when they are perceived to be too old or past their best or box office poison. There may well be a great satire out there that utilises these themes, or one yet to be made, but Birdman is nowhere near vicious or sharp-witted enough for its commentaries on the Hollywood scene to hit home. I sensed it had been rewarded chiefly because it played it safe when it came to satire. A truly great film would have gone to town with this material (and probably come home from Oscar empty-handed).

Keaton does his best with a thankless task. Riggan is a character that it's just hard to care much for. That's not the actor's fault, he simply isn't well-written or sympathetic enough. Half the time I rolled my eyes at his so-called problems rather than engaging with him as a real person. Edward Norton's Mike is a potentially funny caricature of a preening, ridiculous egotist, but the film simply doesn't do enough with him, while the talented Naomi Watts is stuck with a two-dimensional, flat nothing of a woman in Lesley. And while I'm no fan of Emma Stone as an actress, it would be hard for anyone to inject her character with spark and empathy - again, she just wasn't well-rounded enough; you just don't care about what happens to her. With regards the rest of the cast, I either don't remember or didn't engage with them enough to comment in detail on their performances.

A lot has been written about Birdman's gimmick of being filmed in 'one shot', but to me, this distracted from what little of the plot there was and didn't fit at all at times; like much of the rest of the film, it feels forced and unnatural, a 5-minute novelty stretched out to a full 90 odd minutes. Crucially, I also felt that it lacked the smooth sense of cinematography that a director such as Julien Temple managed to convey a generation ago on smaller budgets and lesser technology.

Lastly, Birdman fails in that most critical of areas for a comedy; it simply isn't funny. Most of the time, I didn't really know what it was trying to be. There might have been comic potential in the basic premise here, but it's lost quickly as the film descends into self-indulgent, insubstantial babble. 2015's other front runner for best film, Boyhood, may also have its detractors, but in my opinion it blows Birdman out of the water technically, thematically, and in terms of its ambition and acting. Heck, it even manages to be a bit funnier!

Birdman was almost universally praised by critics, and maybe I just didn't 'get it', but it feels about as weak, back-slapping and un-entertaining as an Oscar winner can get. Disappointing, unfunny and shallow.