Rocks (2019) – ****
After Rocks earned a whopping seven nominations at this year’s BAFTA awards (tying for the most of the year with Nomadland), and since it’s on Netflix, I decided to go ahead and watch it. And I’m very glad I did; it’s a winning little slice of life, a film which captures the rhythms of its characters’ lives and interactions so well that the occasional moments which feel like screenwriting stand out the more. But they don’t much diminish the overall glow of love and life the film creates.
In London, teenager Olushola Omotoso, better known as “Rocks” (Bukky Bakray), lives with her mother, Funke (Layo-Christina Akinlude), and little brother Emmanuel (D’angelou Osei Kissiedu), and spends most of her time in and out of school hanging out with a tight-knit circle of friends, including her best friend, Sumaya (Kosar Ali). One day, Rocks and Emmanuel come home to discover a note from Funke, apologizing for leaving but saying that she needs to “clear her head.” Rocks does what she can to carry on as if Funke will soon return (we learn that she’s done something like this before), but as time passes, money runs short, the utilities are turned off, and Social Services start poking around, Rocks does what she can to maintain control of the situation.
Let’s just break the film down through those seven nominations. That’s always fun.
First, there’s Best Casting. And it’s absolutely deserved, because everyone in the film comes off naturally and engagingly. I’m not entirely sure how much acting experience the main cast members have had (there are several professional actors in the supporting cast), but Bakray, Ali, Kissiedu, and all the young actresses who make up Rocks’ circle do very well indeed, feeling real without being flat or mundane, being funny and charismatic without mugging for attention, except in the way people do around their friends.
Then there’s Best Screenplay, which ties into the nomination for Best Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer, since it’s for screenwriters Theresa Ikoko (who’s credited with the story) and Claire Wilson. The end credits suggest the story and characters were developed with the actors’ help (not unlike Mike Leigh’s process), and the scenes with Rocks and her friends in particular have the crackling chaos of real conversation, filled with slang (I was grateful for the subtitles), half-finished utterances, and rapid shifts of tone and topic. And I’m not sure how much of Emmanuel’s dialogue was scripted and how much was just Kissiedu being himself, but he’s full of hilarious little quips, starting with his garbled version of the Lord’s Prayer.
As noted, there are scenes and plot points which feel more “written” than others, especially Rocks and Emmanuel getting thrown out of the seedy hotel they checked into; the scene itself is well played, but it can’t totally shake the feeling of being contrived to get Rocks and Emmanuel to their lowest point so the final act can be set in motion. It’s not as glaring as, say, the fire in Minari, but it does betray the plot mechanics at work. Still, there’s more than enough good things in the script to make it worth the nominations.
Then there’s Best Supporting Actress for Ali, and in an especially thin year for this category, she certainly deserves it as well. It’s hard to explain just what makes her performance so effective, beyond saying that she’s simply full of life and humor, but handles the dramatic side of things no less capably. There’s a scene where Sumaya calls out Rocks for her “putting up walls,” for her refusal to let others help her, and when Rocks says she doesn’t need any help, Sumaya pointedly asks why Rocks has asked to stay with her in the first place. It precipitates a falling out (resolved in the end, of course), and Ali’s performance helps make the scene feel entirely natural, the result of years of love and frustration, with the latter temporarily winning out.
Then, of course, there’s Best Actress for Bakray, and while she doesn’t make my own top 5 (it’s as strong a year in Lead as it is weak in Supporting), she is very good, showing Rocks’ resourcefulness and stubbornness, and the profound fears which inform them; we learn that Rocks’ father is dead, that her grandmother is in Nigeria, and that without her mother she and Emmanuel have no one. Bakray’s performance shows how Rocks has internalized this insecurity, and how this manifests itself in her need to be in control of her life, to the point of refusing help and avoiding those who to step in. When matters are finally taken out of her hands, it’s a heart-rending scene because Bakray so convincingly shows how much Rocks shuts down in response.
Then there’s the nomination for director Sarah Gavron, and certainly it was her ability to get the best from her cast, her ability to channel their energies, that makes the film work as well as it does. There are moments which tip a bit over into chaos, like a cooking-class fight prompted by Rocks’ amoral friend (well, temporary friend) Roshé (Shaneigha-Monik Greyson), but some of that is on the cinematography and the editing, which are mostly effective but can be just a bit self-consciously showy at times. Gavron’s sympathy for her characters and respect for their dignity (the film doesn’t wallow in their sufferings or dwell on unpleasant detail) is what comes through in the end, and as such it’s a solidly merited nomination.
Finally, there’s the nod for Outstanding British Film. I’ve only seen three of the nominees (the other two being The Mauritanian and Promising Young Woman, neither really very British), and it’s easily the best of them. It’s an easy film for me to recommend because it captures the excitement of being young and the joys of friendship, but also captures the fears and tensions of that age (it also does a good job of showing the particular dynamics of high school life) and of being caught in a situation where you can only count on yourself, or only allow yourself to do so. And it does this with the right balance of empathy and comedy – the balance that sustains us through most of our days.
Score: 88
The Willoughbys (2020) – ***
One might describe The Willoughbys as 10 pounds of candy in a 5-pound bag – or maybe 90 pounds in a 20-pound bag, since its overall style, which would work quite well for a short or a half-hour episode, can be a bit exhausting at feature length. But it’s not just the style but the story which feels like it’s bulging at the seams; we have the fixation on the lost honor of the Willoughby family, the unhappy plight of the children whose parents regard them as intrusions on their own infatuation with each other, the dilemma of what to do with the abandoned baby they find, the plot to “orphan” themselves by sending their parents on a dangerous vacation, the change wrought in their lives by their boisterous nanny, the revelation that the mysterious candy-maker is now a loving father, the attempts to prevent the family house from being sold, the (comedic) pitfalls of foster care, the quest to track down the original parents and give them another chance…it’s a hell of a lot to cram into one movie, and we also have to make room for the narration by a sardonic stray cat who finally works his way into the story. Not everything fits too comfortably.
It doesn’t help that I found it hard to really care about Tim Willoughby’s obsession with his family’s reputation (and moustaches), and for most of the film his efforts to maintain order (as the eldest child) and preserve the family’s reputation make him come off as a tiresome prig. He has a change of heart, of course, but one may be more comfortable laughing at him than with him. I myself would be glad to have less time with Tim and more time with Commander Melanoff, who comes off like a more down-to-earth Willy Wonka. What’s his story? How’d he get that factory? Why does he run it all by himself? I’d rather hear about that than about the damn moustaches.
Still, for the most part I found it pretty fun and inventive. If the rapid-fire style can wear a bit thin, it also ensures a steady supply of jokes, both visual (the Willoughbys cause chaos any time they come near a car) and verbal (“If you need love, I beg you, find it elsewhere”). It’s often a very funny movie, and if the animation style for the characters doesn’t always work (they’re so spindly), the Gothic absurdity of the Willoughby home, the contrasting colorful creations and sterile machinery of the Melanoff factory, and the eerie, Agent Smith-like precision of Orphan Services provide plenty of visual stimulation. I also have to admit the little twins, both named Barnaby, are quite amusing, constantly chattering in perfect synchronization as if they shared a single mouth between them; they also get a great bit near the very end that I won’t spoil.
The voice acting is solid enough, with Maya Rudolph coming off best as Linda, the warm-hearted nanny who shows the children the first real affection they’ve ever had; Martin Short and Jane Krakowski are fun as the obnoxious parents, and Seán Cullen is spot-on as the Barnabys. Will Forte is okay as Tim; Alessia Cara is better as the musically-inclined middle child Jane. Terry Crews is properly whimsical as Melanoff, but he doesn’t get quite enough to do. Ricky Gervais is all right as the feline narrator, but unsurprisingly he seems to love hearing himself speak more than we love listening to him.
All in all, The Willoughbys will work fine for most children; it’s probably a touch too dense for very young kids, but if you’re old enough to read Lois Lowry’s source novel (I haven’t), you’ll certainly be able to keep up with the movie. It’s not on a par with something like Raya and the Last Dragon, but you could do much worse for a family movie night.
Score: 76
The Father (2020) – ****
As The Father begins, Ann (Olivia Colman) goes to visit her father Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) at his flat in London. She tells him she’s fallen in love and is moving to Paris, and must find a new caregiver for him, since he drove the previous one away. He insists he can take care of himself, and says the old caregiver stole his watch. Ann suggests he check his old hiding place; it’s there. She has to remind him he accused the old caregiver of stealing it. So it’s clear that Anthony’s memory isn’t what it used to be.
In the next scene, Anthony goes into the kitchen and starts making a cup of tea. He hears a noise in the other room and goes to look. A man (Mark Gatiss) is sitting there, and Anthony demands to know who he is and what he’s doing there. The man, unruffled, explains that he lives there. Anthony isn’t convinced, and the man calls Ann to let her know he’s not feeling well. He tells Anthony she’ll be back momentarily. A woman (Olivia Williams) comes in. She appears to be Ann. Anthony is at a loss for words. And we now realize just how serious things really are.
As The Father progresses, Anthony finds himself, like Billy Pilgrim, unstuck in time. It’s very hard to explain just how the film depicts the insidiousness of dementia, only that it does so in the ways that only film can; as time passes, we’re never quite sure what’s happening, what’s already happened, what will happen, who Anthony is talking to, or where he even is. Even at the end, we can’t quite piece everything together, because Anthony is long since past the point where he can.
We are, like Anthony, lost in a fog of confusion, where place blurs into place and face into face, but he can’t or won’t accept what is happening, and falls into anger. We also get moments of quiet cruelty, especially directed at Ann, which make us wonder if we’re seeing Anthony at his worst, or if he was always a bit of an SOB. And when does move away from Anthony, we see the toll taken on Ann and the resentment of her husband Paul (Rufus Sewell) at Anthony’s presence. We might never be certain of everything that’s going on. But we can be sure of the emotions, of the love, the fear, and the frustration that fills this apartment. Whichever apartment it is.
Among the BAFTA nominations The Father received was a nod for Peter Francis’ production design, and it’s quite masterful in how it subtly toys with the shifting reality – well, the perceived reality – of each given scene, paying off rather brilliantly near the end. And another nod was for Yorgos Lamprinos’ editing, which unmoors us without creating chaos for chaos’ sake, and offers tantalizing glimpses of the even bleaker reality behind what Anthony can grasp. Ben Smithard’s cinematography never puts us too much in Anthony’s shoes, preventing us from so easily dismissing one happening or another as hallucination. And the music, apparently combining classical pieces with new compositions, makes especially noteworthy use of Reinmar Neuner’s violin playing to create the atmosphere of a paranoid thriller – which, in an especially tragic sense, this is.
Florian Zeller wrote the original play in French, and Christopher Hampton translated and adapted it (I wonder if he added Anthony’s repeated joke about the French not even speaking English), and it’s certainly one of the finer scripts of the year. It gives us enough to keep us grounded in these characters and their struggles, but never so much that we can get ahead of Anthony and figure out what’s “really” going on. And Zeller, making his directing debut, never tips his hand with showy technique, but uses the medium to make this more than just a film of a play. It’s an impressive debut, and if he manages an Oscar nod for Best Director I wouldn’t be upset.
Of course, the acting is what will get the most attention, and it’s hard to argue with that. Gatiss and Sewell – especially Sewell, who’s carved out a solid smug-antagonist niche for himself – are properly cold and arrogant as the men (well, at least one of them is) who can’t help wondering if Anthony knows just what he’s doing, or needs to wonder in order to justify his own resentment. Imogen Poots has a likable small role as the caretaker who hopefully knows what she’s dealing with. Colman, who’s earned several major nominations, is poignantly distressed as the daughter caught between living her own life and trying to care for her father, who’s quite willing to put her down and exalt his other daughter (and there’s a whole other tragedy to unpack there); we wonder if she is a bit unmoored herself, dealing with Anthony’s tragic decline. And Williams is comparably effective (I actually wish she had a bit more to do), having an especially effective final monologue which tries to bring us back to a place of peace.
But it all rests on Hopkins, who’s fantastic as he always is, so convincing in showing how Anthony has become lost in the wilderness of his own mind that you worry about Hopkins himself. He simply gives the perfect touch to the jokes, the cruel comments, the rages, the pathetic protests; there’s one scene which is truly painful to watch, as…well, someone’s resentment boils over into physical abuse. And in the final scene, he seems to lapse almost back into childhood, leading to a display which is so infantile you figure Anthony has to be playing a trick, has to be baiting us with his blubbering, until it becomes all too clear that he isn’t. The “second childishness” Jacques predicts in As You Like It is here. But he has not yet achieved the mercy of “mere oblivion.” There is still a man there. And he knows it.
Score: 91
(Postscript: I wrote this before the Oscar nominations. Now that they’ve been announced, I’m glad to say that all six nominations it received—Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actress (Colman), Editing, and Production Design—were well deserved.)
365 Days/365 Dni (2020) – *
I watched 365 Days mainly because it just earned (and how) six Razzie nominations, and because I haven’t seen nearly enough bad movies this year. (Two **** films in this week alone! Unpardonable.) And to be sure, 365 Days is a very bad film, but there’s virtually nothing it does that other films haven’t done worse; there are films which have worse acting, many with worse direction, and a few with worse writing. And there are plenty of films which are more morally disquieting, gross though this one is.
But of course, you watch a film like this for the sex, and once you get past the first 45 minutes, there’s a lot of it. And if you ignore the specifics of the plot, it’s acceptable for what it is: mid-grade softcore (on the harder end of the scale) sexual acrobatics between two people you might well find pleasing to look at. But there are so many films with better, more genuinely erotic, more emotionally rewarding sex, and most of them are actively good films on top of it. Hardly the worst and light-years away from the best, 365 Days exists in a realm of glossy ignominy.
The plot: Massimo (Michele Morrone) is the heir to his father’s Mafia empire. He sees a beautiful woman on a nearby beach moments before his father is assassinated. Five years later, having secured his own power, he finds her again. Her name is Laura (Anna Maria Sieklucka), and she’s a Polish businesswoman, in that vaguely-defined bad-movie way. She has a boorish boyfriend (Mateusz Lasowski), and they go to Italy for her birthday, where Massimo sees her and kidnaps her. He tells her he’ll give her one year to fall in love with him and he won’t touch her without asking.
She objects at first (with good reason) but changes her tune before long (for no reason but the plot), and most of the second half of the film is taken up with them fucking, him pissing off his ex (who’s apparently a mobster in her own right), them fucking, him sending her back to Poland, her going on a bender with her best friend Olga (Magdalena Lamparska), him coming back to her, them fucking, him proposing, and their preparing to live happily after, until tragedy strikes once more, not because the story can actually bear the weight of it, but because without it there would hardly be a story.
There are any number of ways this story could have been better told. It could’ve made the slightest attempt to explore why Laura changes her attitude to Massimo, or why, when she gets a chance to contact her family, she tells them she’s taking a job in Sicily. It could’ve made even a token effort to explore how Massimo’s brutality seemingly makes him a successful gangster (seemingly; from what we actually see it’s a wonder he wasn’t whacked years ago) but a disastrous lover, even accounting for the fact that he’s obviously banking on her getting Stockholm syndrome when, given her current crumbling relationship, he could’ve simply approached her and we could’ve had her wrestling with the simultaneous allure and danger of his lifestyle.
But that would require a script with any curiosity about its own characters or any insight into human behavior. As it is, it’s got a premise which is disturbing enough to diminish its value as ersatz porn, but handled so poorly that it has no value as anything else. Of the six Razzie nominations it received, the nod for Tomasz Klimala’s script was by far the most merited; I have no idea how the source novel by Blanka Lipinska is, but the general consensus is that it’s a rip-off of Fifty Shades of Grey, which about as literal a scraping of the bottom of the barrel as I can conceive. (It was also nominated for Worst Remake, Rip-off, or Sequel, which I can hardly argue with.)
On the other hand, the nods for Worst Director (Barbara Bialowas & Tomasz Mandes), Worst Actor (Morrone), and Worst Actress (Sieklucka) are only moderately deserved. Not that it’s well directed in any sense, but the filmmaking is mostly generic stylization. It looks cheap and I’m sure it was, but it’s not laughably incompetent. And the acting is worse more because Morrone and Sieklucka are forced to deliver most of their dialogue in English (since neither character really speaks the other’s native tongue), and their delivery rarely feels natural.
But Morrone is at least believable as an bullying, overgrown adolescent, if not as a competent mafioso, and his acting is better than his music; he provides a number of songs for the soundtrack and they’re all terrible. And Sieklucka was, at the very least, a tremendously good sport about having to spend most of the film naked and/or subjugated; according to her IMDb page she’s an accomplished stage actress, and I can believe it. But if this is what the big screen has to offer her, she might want to stick to the stage. (But they’re already making a sequel to this, with she and Morrone starring. So it goes.)
Lastly there’s Worst Picture, and of the films I’ve seen for this year, it is, by far, the worst. But it’s so empty, so removed from human experience, so dully polished in its style and so unadventurous in its content, that it’s hard to really hate. On paper, you can at leas be disgusted by the premise. But the film didn’t even inspire disgust in me, just indifference. It’s on Netflix if you feel the need to see it. But why would you?
Score: 22
The Man Who Laughs (1928) – ****
Why see forgettable smut when you could see this? It would be notable simply for the fact that the rictus carved into the face of poor Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt) was the primary inspiration for the eternal grin of the Joker (here, we know just how he got those scars), but it’s a fantastic film in its own right, a masterful piece of filmmaking combining the vision of German Expressionist director Paul Leni and the resources of Universal in the late 20s, after they had already established their commitment to horror cinema by producing Lon Chaney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera. He might not have played Gwynplaine, but Veidt’s performance ensures you won’t care.
I started laying out the story of The Man Who Laughs and found that it would take quite a few paragraphs to do justice. So I’ll do it as compactly as possible. Gwynplaine is the son of a nobleman who was executed for defying James II of England. He was given a permanent smile on James’ orders that he could “laugh forever at his fool of a father.” Abandoned by his mutilators, he finds an orphaned infant girl, and then finds sanctuary with the carnival “philosopher” Ursus (Cesare Gravina), who raises him and the (blind) girl. They grow up, and as adults Gwynplaine and Dea (Mary Philbin) perform in the carnival; he is renowned as “The Laughing Man,” and audiences howl at his grinning face, causing him much torment.
Dea loves him, and he loves her, but he struggles to accept that he deserves to be loved. Meanwhile, Dr. Hardquannone (George Siegmann), who mutilated Gwynplaine’s face, threatens to reveal his identity to Duchess Josiana (Olga Baclanova), who enjoys the wealth of Gwynplaine’s family. But his message is intercepted by Barkilphedro (Brandon Hurst), once James’ Machiavellian jester and now a member of the court of Queen Anne (Josephine Crowell), and a series of intrigues are set in motion which deepen as Josiana becomes infatuated with Gwynplaine, who will ultimately be forced to choose between his long-forgotten birthright and the only real family he has.
It’s a mightily melodramatic tale, full of romance, suspense, humor, pathos, and yes, the faithful “Homo the Wolf,” only the second- or third-most unfortunately named character in the piece. Adapted from a novel by Victor Hugo, the story can feel a bit compressed at times, especially in the back half, but it arrives at an ending so absurd, yet so fitting, that you can’t help but walk away smiling. And that’s if you weren’t already swept up in the stunning imagery crafted by Leni and cinematographer Gilbert Warrenton.
Whether it’s the young Gwynplaine crossing a landscape of corpses dangling from gibbets, the camera being placed in a proto-Ferris wheel at the Southwark Fair, or a tracking shot which depicts the arrest of Hardquannone, Warrenton’s camerawork at once reflects the best of its era and feels years ahead of its time. And the sets by Charles D. Hall run the gamut from the macabre (James’ bedchamber) to the earthy (the Southwark Fair) to the lush (Anne’s palace, the House of Peers), with David Cox and Vera West’s costumes no less impressive. And makeup artist Jack Pierce, who would go on to create the iconic look of Frankenstein, not only does a great job with Gwynplaine’s rictus smile, but with the faces of those around him—“normal” people who are, in their own ways, quite grotesque.
And the acting is very fine throughout; Veidt conveys great depth of feeling with his eyes and what little of his mouth he can move, Baclanova is as intensely sensuous and scheming as Philbin is tender and kind, and Hurst is as loathsome a bastard as Gravina is a lovable buffoon; there’s an especially moving scene where he and the other members of the carnival try and make it seem as if the show is going on after Gwynplaine has been arrested on Anne’s orders, desperately trying not to break Dea’s heart.
But it’s Leni’s sure hand and vision throughout that makes it all work – and I must also mention the excellent use of music and sound effects, a vestige of the changeover to sound which only adds to the film – that rather than collapsing into absurdity it works magnificently, so that Gwynplaine’s real moment of triumph can shine through when he proclaims, “A queen made me a lord…but first, God made me a man!”
Score: 91
Tiger Bay (1959) – ***½
Tiger Bay is, in many respects, a very strange film, a film about a murderer who’s treated with sympathy, about a child who lies repeatedly and never shows remorse for it or gets any real comeuppance, about a manhunt underpinned by questions of guilt, loyalty, and social stigmas (including racism), yet leavened with considerable lightheartedness and humor. It’s not an entirely seamless combination, but it’s quite good all the same, a film widely and deservedly regarded as a hidden gem (which I suppose is a bit of a contradiction but it makes sense in its way).
Polish sailor Bronislav Korchinsky (Horst Buchholz) arrives in Cardiff to see his girlfriend Anya (Yvonne Mitchell). But first he goes to their apartment (which he’s been sending her money to rent) and she isn’t there. He gets a forwarding address from the landlord and a warning: “Don’t let your emotions run your life.” He finds her new apartment with the help of Gillie Evans (Hayley Mills), a mischievous girl who lives in the same building. He finds Anya, but she isn’t glad to see him; weary of his nomadic life at sea, she’s found another man and wants nothing more to do with Korchinsky. Gillie, hearing their arguing from the hallway, looks through the letter slot and sees the argument turn violent—culminating in Korchinsky shooting Anya to death.
Korchinsky hides the gun inches away from where Gillie is herself hiding, but he sees her when she snatches the gun, as she wants it for a toy. He flees, and when Supt. Graham (John Mills) comes around to investigate the murder, Gillie lies about his appearance. She leaves to sing in the church choir at a wedding, with the gun in her possession. During the wedding, she sees Korchinsky in the pews watching her, and afterwards he corners her in the church’s attic. But she is unafraid of him and he has no desire to hurt her; when he tells her plans to get a job on another ship and get as far away as quickly as he can, she eagerly asks to join him.
Although he has no intention of taking her abroad, he must keep her away from the police until he can get on a ship. They seek a safe place to hide, but this take is complicated when the news breaks that the police are searching for Gillie. The film follows Korchinsky and Gillie’s developing friendship and attempts to keep him out of trouble, as well as Graham’s efforts to investigate the murder, wherein his suspicions turn to Anya’s lover Barclay (Anthony Dawson), whose own behavior is rather dubious. But it’s Gillie’s loyalty to Korchinsky that will complicate matters to an astounding degree. To the point, in fact, where the film seems to be building up to a reasonable climax, only to keep drawing things out, till you half expect Korchinsky to just confess rather than listen to Gillie’s insistent lies.
No, Tiger Bay isn’t a perfect film by any stretch; the story is oddly structured and it mixes tones in an off-beat way that makes for mildly disjointed viewing. But it’s also fascinating and thoroughly engaging, taking turns and paying off seemingly irrelevant moments in ways you wouldn’t expect. And it keeps us invested in the characters: in Korchinsky, who from the start seems more boy than man, such that he often seems to regard the murder as akin to breaking his mother’s favorite lamp; in Gillie, whose blithe amorality is rather chilling, but whose bond with Korchinsky is genuinely sweet; and in Graham, who sees the truth long before he can prove it, and is willing to call Gillie out for her behavior (“I wouldn’t have you for a friend”), even if her will is just as strong as his.
Indeed, the bond between the Millses (in case you didn’t known, John was Hayley’s father) allows for some of the film’s most memorable moments: Graham snarkily thanking Gillie for her generic, inaccurate description of the killer; Gillie (being driven to Korchinsky’s suspected whereabouts) trying to buy him some time by asking Graham to pull over so she can throw up, and Graham rolling down the window and smugly pointing out of it; and Graham finally making a heartfelt plea to Gillie to tell the truth, trying to convince her that there are limits to loyalty. Gillie was originally written as a boy, but Mills suggested his daughter for the role, feeling that the dynamics of the story would change for the better; his instincts were entirely right.
This was Hayley’s film debut, but it made her a star overnight and the next year she was starring in Disney’s Pollyanna (which won her a special Oscar) – a wildly different role, to be sure. But she does a very good job, showing how Gillie is at once a willful brat and yet quite innocent as to how the world really works; you realize she really doesn’t grasp the consequences of her actions. In a key scene, she re-enacts the murder as she saw it, having a blast acting it all out; Hayley actually improvised almost the entire scene herself, showing just how keen her instincts were. It’s not an entirely polished performance, but it’s an extremely impressive debut.
Buchholz was making his English-language debut here; he was already a star in his native West Germany and after a few years of trying to break into the Anglophone market (perhaps most notably in The Magnificent Seven), he mostly stayed there. He’s very good as well, balancing a sense of playfulness (there’s a wonderful scene where he acts out a fantastical adventure of his for Gillie) with a haunted intensity (the mood of that scene is broken when his tattoo with Anya’s name is accidentally revealed); we don’t always know what Korchinsky is about to do, and he doesn’t always seem sure himself – but Buchholz is most certainly in control.
Mills, already an established star, is really a supporting role despite his top billing (he doesn’t even appear until well into the story), but he’s very solid as well, bringing a wry wit to Graham’s interrogations but never losing sight of the fundamental drive to catch the killer. And the supporting cast is suitably effective – I’m especially intrigued by Shari, who plays Christine, a (heavily implied) sex worker who lives in Korchinsky and Anya’s old flat, and who ends up playing a more significant role in his journey. This appears to have been Shari’s only film, but she brings an intriguing energy to her scenes, helped by the fact that Christine is hinted to be biracial or non-white, which adds an extra layer of sympathy to her difficulties with the police.
Indeed, the film depicts race in a rather fascinating fashion for the time; black and white children play together without comment, Gillie sings at a wedding where the bride and groom are black, and later in the film she and Korchinsky watch what might be the wedding party, only for him to turn away when they start singing a comic song about the difficulties of marriage. It seems well ahead of what Hollywood was doing at the time, but then, Hollywood might have also insisted on a more concrete moral at the end, or had Gillie more wracked by her conscience throughout. In this instance, the film definitely benefited from being British.
It’s also pretty well done on a technical level. J. Lee Thompson’s direction doesn’t always shift tones smoothly, but it’s honest and unflashy. The script by John Hawkesworth and Shelley Smith (from “Rodolphe et le Revolver” by Noel Calef) is intriguing and often witty; another moment I especially liked was when Gillie shows a bullet from the murder weapon to a fellow chorister, who offers to trade her candy and a toy for it – to the tune of the hymn they’re singing! It’s pretty well shot by Eric Cross, and Laurie Johnson’s score is good in of itself, though it can be a bit overbearing as used in the film. But in a way it adds to the unusual feel of the film, that offbeat quality that I suspect has earned it the following it has.
Score: 83
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