For It Is Man's Number: alisha weir

Showing posts with label alisha weir. Show all posts

Sunday, 4 August 2024

Netflix And Chill: Wicked Little Letters (2023)

Based on a true story, one that scandalised at least parts of the UK, Wicked Little Letters is all about, well, exactly what the title says. It's the 1920s, and people in the Littlehampton start to receive anonymous letters full of choice insults and hatred. Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) is the pious spinster who seems to be targeted by these letters, which makes her foul-mouthed neighbour, Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley), the number one suspect. The police believe they have their criminal, although one officer (WPC Gladys Moss, played by Anjana Vasan) thinks there may be cause to look elsewhere.

Having been documented in the press of the time, and subsequently in a couple of books on the subject, writer Jonny Sweet has a good central premise to work with. I don't know how close to the truth this gets, it may be as far removed from it as we are from the moon, but there are many moments that certainly play out as you can imagine, reflecting prejudices and behaviours as sadly prevalent today as they were decades ago.

Director Thea Sharrock knows the value of her talent pool, in both the writing and the cast, and everyone involved knows the value of some cracking swear-words sprinkled liberally throughout every scene. I am not saying that swearing is big or clever, but it can be bloody funny, especially when the words are being uttered by people seemingly unable to comprehend the flavour of the language being used.

Both Colman and Buckley are very good, as you would expect. The former gets to act very still and oppressed for the majority of the runtime, the latter is an enviable free spirit looking to enjoy a new life that should make things more comfortable for her daughter (played by the very talented Alisha Weir). Vasan is on par with the two leads, her expressions often showing her true reactions to the prejudice she has to deal with on a daily basis. There are also wonderful performances from Timothy Spall (being entertainingly loathsome), Hugh Skinner and Paul Chahidi (as unimaginative members of the police force), and Eileen Atkins, Lolly Adefope, and Joanna Scanlan, playing women who also want to help uncover the true identity of the letter-writer. Malachi Kirby also does well, and has some surprisingly sweet moments amidst the rudeness, and viewers will spot familiar faces such as Gemma Jones, Tim Key, and Jason Watkins joining in with the profane fun.

While it is all about letters filled with rude words, this is a film also all about the danger of jumping to conclusions, and just how easily someone can use their position in society to demonize and ostracize someone they view as being a lesser member of the community. It shows how little it takes to turn people against others, while using some truth, some half-truths, and a whole lot of lies. Sound familiar? Because it does to me, especially during a time when the UK has seen such rioting and disruption caused by almost the exact same tactics. Wicked little social media posts, you might say.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share

Tuesday, 23 April 2024

Abigail (2024)

I am going to have to make a decision here, whether to include some spoilers in this review or not. Although I would normally work hard to avoid spoilers, Abigail has arguably already been spoiled for you if you have seen the trailer or some of the alternate poster designs. I understand why. It makes more sense to draw in the horror crowd it is aimed at, which wouldn’t necessarily happen if it was sold to look like a straightforward crime thriller. So . . . I am going to discuss it as if it is a pretty straightforward crime thriller, but I am assuming that you will all be aware of the fact that it is more than that.

Things start with a kidnapping. Six people work together to snatch a little girl (Abigail, played by Alisha Weir) before driving to an isolated country home where they have to stay holed up for 24 hours. If all goes well then the payday is $50M. All isn’t about to go well though. It turns out that not only is Abigail’s father very rich, but he is also very powerful and dangerous. And Abigail may share a few of his traits.

Written by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, this is a very smart and funny horror comedy that makes a lot of things very obvious from the opening titles (for those familiar with the music cue). The twists and turns aren’t presented as major rug-pulls, nothing here will surprise fans of the tropes being played with, but they keep being thrown into the plot with a sense of glee, curveball after curveball for our main characters to deal with. With directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett at the helm (directors of the last two Scream movies, as well as the very enjoyable Ready Or Not), everyone going into this should have an idea of what they are getting into. It’s playful, it’s bloody, and it’s a fresh take on some very familiar material.

The cast are all on the same page, happy to fit into their archetypes and just allow themselves to be part of a group that descends into chaos as everything around them starts going wrong. Melissa Barrera is much better here than she was in the Scream movies, making for a great central character to root for, and Dan Stevens is having a whale of a time as the cold-blooded leader of the group. Kevin Durand and Kathryn Newton are much simpler, more sweet-hearted characters (relatively speaking), and both Angus Cloud and William Catlett do well in their respective roles, even if they seem less important to the group than some of the others. Everyone is a bag of clichés, but it doesn’t matter when they are being used in such a fun way. Weir is the star though, and proves more than capable at conveying the many different moods her character goes through during the unraveling of the kidnapping scheme. It is also worth mentioning a couple of excellent cameo turns from Giancarlo Esposito and Matthew Goode.

Unabashedly profane and bloody throughout, Abigail is the most fun I have had with a mainstream American horror movie in a hell of a long time. It’s well-paced, it looks gorgeous throughout (even as the sets become drenched in blood), it’s inventive, and there are numerous easter eggs dotted throughout that can be enjoyed or ignored without changing how you feel about the rest of the film. All in all, it’s a bloody good time for fans of those involved.

8/10

Sunday, 2 July 2023

Netflix And Chill: Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical (2022)

First thing's first, I am not going to keep referring to Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical as Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical. That's too much for me to type out every time, and I am trying to get this review written as quickly as possible, having fallen behind schedule yet again. I'll just call it Matilda, and there's no need to be confused as I won't be comparing it to the previous film version, Matilda (1996). Secondly, I want to start this review by saying that I enjoyed Matilda. It made me smile, and I enjoyed the musical numbers while they were happening. I didn't love it though, and I was really hoping to love it, especially considering the people involved.

Alisha Weir plays Matilda Wormwood, a little girl not treated nicely at all by her parents, played by Andrea Riseborough and Stephen Graham. Matilda is actually delighted when she is required to start attending school, but her delight starts to fade away when she finds out that the school is run by the child-loathing and super-strict Agatha Trunchbull (Emma Thompson). Thankfully, there's a ray of sunshine in the form of Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch), as well as something changing within Matilda that makes her think she could encourage the pupils to take a stand against the formidable Miss Trunchbull.

Based on the stage musical by Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin, itself based on the book by Roald Dahl (of course, hence the overlong title), Matilda has a fine pedigree. The stage musical has, as far as I am aware, been a great success, which isn't surprising when you think of how talented Minchin has been, and how successfully he has blended music and comedy, for many years now (no offence to Kelly, I am just not familiar with much of his previous work). You also have Matthew Warchus directing, a man who has worked in theatre, but who also delivered the crowd-pleasing Pride almost a decade ago. So the talent behind the camera seems to be as good as you would want for this.

In front of the camera is a bit more of a mixed bag. The adults are all quite wonderful though. I have heard the criticism about the casting of Thompson as Miss Trunchbull, but I have always viewed many Dahl characters as unsubtle caricatures. With that in mind, I could envision almost anyone in the make-up and costume required for this character, and I think Thompson is enjoyably cruel and spiteful in the role, as full-on nasty to the children as the story demands. Graham and Riseborough are also entertaining as they treat their child in a genuinely horrible way that comes close to unbalancing the tone of the film, but everything is helped by the moments in which Matilda quietly gets some revenge. Lynch is as sweet and lovely as Miss Honey should be, and Sindhu Vee is delightful as a librarian who has been friends with Matilda for quite some time, and finds herself engrossed in a story that Matilda relates to her daily, one "chapter" at a time. As for Matilda herself, Weir is okay in the role, although I think her precociousness is slightly overdone and a bit irritating (which may just be the difference between approaching this material as an adult and approaching it as the younger age group it is aimed at). Very few of the other children get a chance to stand out, with the notable exception of Charlie Hodson-Prior as Bruce Bogtrotter (THE eater of cake in a scene that will be stuck in the memory of anyone familiar with this tale), but all of the supporting players do well enough in their roles.

So it's all pretty good throughout, but lacks one vital ingredient to make it great. Surprisingly . . . it's the songs. As of right now, and I watched the film a week ago, I remember part of one song. One. It's the enjoyable song that all the kids join in on while Bruce is being forced to eat an entire cake. There are other songs I enjoyed, particular highlights being "School Song", "When I Grow Up", and "Revolting Children", but it's as if the clever and witty Minchin was too busy making them clever and witty to also make them memorable. Maybe an extra viewing or two will lock them into my brain, it's tricky for a relatively new musical to worm into your ears from the very first experience, but I'm not motivated to rush into a rewatch. There's also the problem of the staging of the musical numbers, each one presented in a way that reminded me of this being adapted from a stage show. It's not an easy thing to pin down, but I watched the film and thought "okay, yes, they would have the playground set, the dinner hall set, a classroom, Matilda's house, and a couple of extra special pieces" whenever the film moved between main locations, and particularly when it used the environment as part of the musical numbers.

A good cast, a child-friendly tale of good battling evil, and some clever lyrics make this enjoyable enough. There's nothing great here though, sadly, although I can imagine enjoying this much more when seeing it performed as it should be, live on stage. I suspect I'm in the minority with my view, but I think I enjoyed the 1996 movie more (okay, ONE comparison, but that's it).

6/10