Quick Takes, December 2022

Florence Pugh in The Wonder

Sebastian Lelio's The Wonder is a good, but not great, adaptation of Emma Donoghue's novel. Set in 19th century Ireland, the film tells the tale of an English nurse (Florence Pugh) assigned to monitor a rural girl who, allegedly, has survived for months without food. The film does a good job depicting the age old conflict between faith and reason, but the traumatic backstory of the nurse feels sketchy. Also, the distancing techniques of the prelude and coda adds little. Still, the performances are first rate, particularly Pugh, the best actress to emerge from the UK in this century. Currently streaming on Netflix.

Halina Reijn's Bodies Bodies Bodies is a Generation Z variation on And Then There Were None. Reijn handles her ensemble well, but this comedy horror film is neither funny nor scary enough. If you are going to have an ensemble films with no sympathetic characters, the satire needs to be sharper. Instead, we get endless shots of the beleaguered ensemble stumbling down cellphone lit corridors.

Charlotte Colbert's She Will is a run of the mill feminist horror film from England. Alice Krige stars as a faded film star recovering from a mastectomy. She ventures to a rural retreat to recuperate with the aid of a nurse. There she encounters the pantheistic spirits of burned witches or something, confronts past trauma, and drinks the milk of feminist empowerment. Colbert is so busy hammering away at her themes that she fails to establish a narrative or characters. The character of the nurse, in particular, is woefully underdrawn. Krige does her best and I enjoyed the contributions of Rupert Everett, Malcom McDowell, and Olwen Fouere. This is Ms. Colbert's first feature and she shows herself to be visually gifted, so her future shows some promise. 

Kevin Lewis' Willy's Wonderland features Nicolas Cage and a band of  'teens' battling possessed animatronic creatures in a Chuck E. Cheese type entertainment center. That is about it.  The characterizations, back story, and subtext are so superficial that the film runs out of steam after the first act. Cage himself described the film as a cross between Pale Rider and Killer Klowns from Outer Space, so it is no surprise that the film gives the sense that it was constructed out of spare parts to be a future cult item rather than a movie that  stands on its own.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, also on Netflix, is a technical marvel and, largely, a delight. I wasn't knocked out by the songs and thought David Bradley wasn't warm enough as Geppetto, but was ultimately moved. The director's setting the story in fascist Italy jibes with themes already found in his films such as The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. A black shirt bootcamp is just as horrifying as Pleasure Island and the whole project fits Del Toro's gift for the grotesque. If anything, Collodi's original is darker than either this or the classic Disney version. Ewan McGregor is perfect as the talking and singing cricket who is the film's heart.

A pint-sized Persona, Celine Sciamma's Petite Maman might seem like a throat clearing exercise after Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but it contains just as many formal pleasures and thematic quandaries in its scant 72 minutes. Formally an ouroboros, the film is a musing on loss and trauma. Sciamma shows she can find the uncanny amidst the commonplace. The film's exteriors are beautifully unsettling, the interiors exude a foreboding emptiness. Unlike many art films, Petite Maman boasts expertly directed performances.

Gabrielle and Josephine Sanz in Petite Maman