A few films for December.
Pinocchio (2022), directed by Guillermo del Toro. This version of Pinocchio takes place in the years between the two Great Wars. Fascists lurk about, as a wicked carnival makes its way through Italy thrilling audiences with its magical puppetry. The basics of Collodi’s story are here, although del Toro may signal any changes when he names Geppetto’s first son Carlo. Carlo dies, the victim of an errant bomb in the first war. What follows is a dark take on the familiar story. Anyway, this is an impressive outing by del Toro. He delivers a film that gives nods to the likes of James Whale, Edmund Goulding, Walt Disney, Lewis Carroll, and Tex Avery. The off-kilter antics of the wooden boy are echoed in the rough workmanship that went into the shaping of him (he only has one ear, for example). The song and dance routines are a parody of Michigan J. Frog. The animation is stunningly good. I suspect many of you will have watched this film; I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
The Duke (2020), directed by Roger Michell. Remember those Ealing Studio romps, The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955) and Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). The Duke is a throwback to those Ealing comedies, and is an enjoyable romp that focuses on an unlikely art thief, Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) and his family. In 1961, Bunton was charged with the theft of Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. The film focuses on the eccentric Bunton, his various crusades for social justice and the welfare of humankind, and his hard-working wife (she works as a charwoman), Dorothy (Helen Mirren). The plot involves the theft of the Goya painting, the actions that precede the theft, and the trial that ensues. Perhaps a bit more treacly than those earlier Ealing comedies, The Duke nonetheless works because of the fine performances of the lead actors and the quite fine script. “Feel good” is perhaps often tossed out as a way of dismissing a film, but in this case, the term is spot on. The film manages to deliver a clever story with likeable characters and a championing of the common person who sets out to speak truth to those in power.
The Green Knight (2021), directed by David Lowery. Based on the 14th century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the film sends a rather immature young Gawain (Dev Patel) on a journey to the Green Chapel where he is to receive a blow from the Green Knight, whose head Gawain removed at the outset of the film in a “Christmas game.” On the journey, Gawain proves less than heroic, chivalrous, or honorable. He encounters a talking fox, giants, brigands, and a lord and lady who take him in, seduce him, and send him on his way. He also has a sash that is supposed to keep him safe. He eventually arrives at his destination where the Green Knight, looking like a large Groot, prepares to swipe off Gawain’s head. All of this happens slowly over 130 minutes of film time. The cinematography is suitably dark and mysterious, and the various locations – moors, rocky landscapes, forests, castles – are both grounded in reality and otherworldly. Mark Kermode in the Guardian calls the film “sumptuously elusive,” and this pretty much sums it up. What we have is a riff on the original story that throws in visual allusions to things as disparate as Blade Runner 2049 and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Some of what we see is arresting, and yet the action moves slowly to try the patience. I suspect this 21st century take on the chivalric romance has something to do with notions of masculinity, although just what the message might be eludes my grasp.
Remember the Night (1940), directed by Mitchell Leisen. This script for this film is by the great Preston Sturges, and he said of the finished film that it "had quite a lot of schmaltz, a good dose of schmerz, and just enough schmutz to make it box office." This is a feel-good Christmas movie with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. Stanwyck plays Lee Leander, a thief/shop lifter who finds herself caught stealing a bracelet just before Christmas. The District Attorney, John Sargent (MacMurray), has the trial delayed in order to assure that he can get a conviction. He learns that Lee has no money and no family and so he takes her with him to Indiana for Christmas. The idea is to drop Lee with her mother, and then for John to proceed to his mother’s for Christmas and New Year’s. Of course, things go awry, Lee ends up staying with Sargent’s family, romance springs up, and everything is so nice. The supporting cast is, as in Sturges’s other films, superb. It includes Beulah Bondi and John’s mother, Sterling Holloway as the farm helper Willie, Elizabeth Patterson as Aunt Emma, and Fred Toones as Rufus. John and his family are just about the most friendly and agreeable people in cinema, making for a delightful and, dare I say, heart-warming filmic experience. There is some silliness here, but it makes for much fun.
Spirited (2022), directed by Sean Anders. Clayton Dillard, in Slant, opines: “To say that the film grows tedious quickly would suggest that it wasn’t already trite from frame one.” Dillard’s review might deter readers from watching this latest reiteration of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, but I hope not. The film is a buoyant throwback to Hollywood in the heyday of musicals. Sure, as Dillard says neither Will Ferrell nor Ryan Reynolds will win Grammys for their singing, but their singing is part of the fun. The film is chocked full of references literary, musical, filmic, and just plain hokey. For example, things begin with a reference to Vancouver – wink, wink. The dance sequences are high energy. The playful use of the Scrooge story is clever. The acting earnest. The two principal characters, the Ghost of Christmas Present (Ferrell) and the cynical PR guy Clint Briggs (Reynolds), are attractive. The inclusion of a variety of body shapes is noteworthy, and also praiseworthy. Okay, we have Benjamin Lee in The Guardian offering this: the film is” an atonal grab bag of inharmonious notes (an uneasy third act suicide proves to be the flattest). When stretched to a two-hour-plus runtime (with more musical bits during the credits), we leave feeling bloated, a 10-course Christmas meal we wish we’d never started.” May I say that the grammar error here might warn us away from such an opinion? The film is high-spirited and fun. Roll with it.
