Mubi Monday: Father Mother Sister Brother (2025)

I don't want to be too quick to dismiss writer-director Jim Jarmusch, but he's certainly been on a bit of a creative downward swing since the fantastic Paterson, which was ten years ago now. And let's not mention The Dead Don't Die. There's a feeling that Jarmusch still enjoys working with the talented collaborators he has befriended over the years, but he may now struggle to come up with a premise truly worthy of their talents.

Father Mother Sister Brother sees Jarmusch returning to the kind of portmanteau form that he's previously used to great effect. I just don't know what to make of it though, although I think it's a look at the unhealthiness of forced family duties. Maybe I'm wrong, but the sections titled "Father" and "Mother" certainly feel more strained and less healthy than the third "Sister Brother" section.

Tom Waits is Father, visited by his son, Jeff (Adam Driver), and daughter, Emily (Mayim Bialik). It's an odd situation, with the children feeling more responsible and parental than the actual parent, but very little actually happens until an amusing enough beat at the very end of the tale. Then it's time for Mother (Charlotte Rampling) to be visited by her two daughters, Lilith (Vicky Krieps) and Timothea (Cate Blanchett). There's a bit more happening here, considering how the two daughters seek approval from their mother, and also from one another, while Lilith tries to hide the fact that she's not exactly in the healthiest of financial situations. Finally, siblings Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) spend some time reconnecting as they process the recent death of their parents.

There's nothing to fault here when it comes to the performances. Waits, Driver, and Bialik get to play up the awkwardness in a way that is light and fun, Rampling, Krieps, and Blanchett are mesmerising as they take part in what feels like some kind of three-way swordfight on criss-crossing tightropes, and both Moore and Sabbat are nicely relaxed for the majority of their segment. Whether he nails down his dialogue and thematic strands or not, Jarmusch can always rely on his casts to deliver.

Aside from the focus on family, there's also a Rolex watch linking the tales (the same one? doubtful, but it's a possibility) and the feeling that relationships are always inextricably linked to that constant root of all evil, money. It's just a shame that Jarmusch keeps things so light and relatively inconsequential. Especially when he has a lot of people who could have easily enjoyed sinking their teeth into something much more substantial. I didn't dislike the time I spent with this, but I doubt I'll ever want to rewatch it. I'd also be surprised if many Jarmusch fans strongly disagreed with me.

4/10

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Prime Time: Spy Game (2001)

When Robert Redford died about six months ago I ended up seriously procrastinating when it came to deciding on the movie I wanted to revisit to be reminded of his talent. There were a number of greats, some of which are all-time classics (especially when he was paired up with an effective co-star, best illustrated by his work with Paul Newman), but I was more familiar with those than with some of his other films. Sneakers was very tempting, especially as I don't think I have rewatched it since I owned it on VHS, but Spy Game was another one I couldn't stop considering. I'm glad I made time for it this week.

A sharp script from Michael Frost Beckner and David Arata shows us the last day on the job for Nathan Muir (Redford), a top CIA operative looking forward to relaxing in his retirement. Unfortunately, his last day becomes more problematic when he hears that his past protégé, Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt), has been caught while trying to extricate someone from a Chinese prison. Because he was there on a personal matter, and because of some upcoming deal being negotiated, the U.S. government decides that Bishop will have to be left in the hands of the Chinese. Muir doesn't like that thinking, but he'll have to use every trick in the book if he wants to keep Bishop alive, which is all the more difficult while he remains in a building full of suspicious colleagues and peers.

Although you can still recognise this as a Tony Scott film, from the visual style and editing, it's one of the less frenetic of his films, making good use of his technique to provide a full backstory to the relationship of Muir and Bishop, as well as ensuring that the camera can move around and focus on details that are also being spotted by our smart and scheming main character. Nothing detracts from the more cerebral aspects of the film, and it feels like the consistent level of intelligence throughout is something that undoubtedly would have appealed to Redford, as well as the commentary on the shifting morality and landscape of the spy games on display.

Redford is effortlessly cool and calm throughout, making use of his undeniable charisma and charm with just enough of self-deprecation on the side to keep people off his scent while he tries to circumvent those officially in charge of a politically-charged situation. Stephen Dillane and Larry Bryggman are two other main players alongside Redford, and both do very good work in their roles. Pitt may have the lesser of the main roles, but he's good at being idealistic and just vulnerable enough to make his mentor stay invested in him, even as they start to strongly disagree on rules of engagement and what collateral damage is worthwhile for the greater good. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is wonderful as Gladys (a secretary and very strong ally), and is room for enjoyable performances from David Hemmings, Benedict Wong, Omid Djalili, and Charlotte Rampling. Cathering McCormack is a bit disappointing, but the rest of the writing and characters do enough to make up for that weak spot (which is more to do with the screenplay than McCormack's acting).

If you're looking for a classic Robert Redford movie then you're obviously going to go elsewhere, but if you're looking for something that feels like it epitomises the blend of entertainment and intelligence that he so often delivered then I highly recommend this. Everything is done well enough to keep it plausible and grounded, relative to a number of other movies in the same vein anyway, and it's an even better Redford-Pitt project than A River Runs Through It (and you can all hush now . . . I LIKE A River Runs Through It). I'm sure I'll make time for Sneakers soon, and maybe a rewatch of The Last Castle, as well as a few other Redford treats.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: 45 Years (2015)

If you have been in any kind of relationship with someone for 45 years then you may think that you would know everything there is to know about them. And you may think there's nothing that would ever make you feel less secure in that relationship. That's probably incorrect though. We all have things that we don't want to say to even our closest confidant, whether it's that bedroom fantasy that you've never been brave enough to discuss, the memories you made with someone else many years ago that can never be fully wiped away as they helped to make you who you are today, or even just the amount of times you examine the toilet paper after every attempt to wipe away the klingons hanging around uranus. Unsurprisingly, 45 Years focuses on that second option, but it could just as easily be about any of them, although I am not sure Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling would be as comfortable discussing their bathroom habits.

Having had to miss out on a celebration of their 40th wedding anniversary, Kate (Rampling) and Geoff (Courtenay) are gearing up to make a big deal of their 45th year together. The couple are rocked, however, by the death of someone that it turns out Geoff was in a relationship with before he ever met Kate. This takes Geoff on a journey through some reminiscences while Kate starts to wonder about how this revelation reframes their relationship to one another.

Based on a short story, "In Another Country", by David Constantine, 45 Years is written and directed by Andrew Haigh. Haigh has a filmography well worth exploring, but this is arguably his weakest film, despite the strength of the lead performances. It's the kind of film that feels as if it would be much better to see as a staged play, with very little added to the material to make it more cinematic or feeling as if it benefits from the medium.

Both Rampling and Courtenay ARE superb though, the former being clearly unsettled and concerned by a revelation that the latter considers to be a footnote in his own life. There's clearly love between the two main characters, but also a disparity when it comes to how they both start to act on the lead up to their big anniversary date. As is made clear in certain scenes, Courtenay's character doesn't even realise how his actions and attitudes are affecting his wife, but he tries his best to mollify her when it's clearly described to him. Both of the stars get to go through a great range of emotions, but it's Rampling who gets the best work, being more present and affected by everything than Courtenay's slightly (typically?) oblivious man. While there are few supporting cast members, Geraldine James gets a scene or two, and is always good to see onscreen.

I certainly wouldn't have enjoyed or appreciated this film if I'd watched it as a much younger man, but it's one that will be of interest to those who have been in any long-term relationship. Some things are taken for granted, whether they should be or not, sometimes the past looms up to cast a large shadow over the present, and sometimes the present needs to be shaken up slightly, just enough to get rid of any complacency and insecurity that may be clinging on to either party like a wet sweater. The longer the relationship, the stronger things can be, but there are still ways in which the rug can be pulled from under your feet. 45 Years shows one such scenario, and how one moment can create a ripple effect throughout an entire lifetime.

7/10

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Orca (1977)

When Jaws was released in 1975 it has to be said, no pun intended, that it really opened some flood-gates. Not only was it the birth of the summer blockbuster, but it also had people chasing similar success with a variety of watery thrillers/horror movies. Orca is one of those attempts to ride that wave (okay, that pun was totally intended), and it was one of the major titles I had been meaning to watch for decades. And now I have.

What you have here is the tale of a a fisherman (Captain Nolan, played by Richard Harris) who ends up engaging in an ongoing battle with a cunning killer whale. To be fair, this whale saw the fisherman kill his partner and child, in a scene that is genuinely distressing and wild. It wasn't necessarily done with malice, but it was done nonetheless. Nolan ends up endangering himself, his colleagues (two main supporting characters played by Robert Carradine and Bo Derek), and, to use the technical term, a sea mammal expert (cetologist Rachel Bedford, played by Charlotte Rampling), but it looks inevitable that things are leading to a showdown between two determined individuals who have suffered great losses.

Directed by the fairly dependable (at this time anyway) Michael Anderson, Orca is a strange mish-mash of elements that don’t ever really fit together, but it has to be said that this is as much a strength as a weakness. Orca isn’t really what you think it is, not for the majority of the runtime, but it keeps trying to remind viewers of the film it is most indebted to. Writers Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Donati have a couple of excellent set-pieces to work around, including that stunning opening sequence that starts the whole chain of events, but they are unable to properly weave together the visceral thrills and the interesting exploration of characters and livelihoods shaped by the sea.

Harris isn’t doing his best work, but he’s good enough. He is certainly still very much a leading man, although Rampling matches him, and gets to share plenty of screentime with him without being reduced to an inconvenient love interest. Will Sampson is very welcome, despite his disappointingly small role, but Carradine, Derek, and Keenan Wynn are given too little to work with. The whole film would have benefited from a smaller core cast and a bigger platter of potential victims, but then it wouldn’t be the oddity that we got.

The best way to sum it up is to label it as technically mediocre, but intermittently impactful. I won’t rush to rewatch this, I may actually never rewatch it, but there are a few scenes that will stay in my mind forever, which is quite the achievement for what is an otherwise unexceptional Jaws “knock off”.

6/10

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Mubi Monday: Benedetta (2021)

It's been a while since I've actually watched a new Paul Verhoeven movie, despite the fact that I own both Black Book and Elle, two films that had very good reviews when released. Benedetta was just impossible to resist though, being the story of a nun who develops a reputation for her religious visions, as well as an erotic relationship with another woman.

Based on a book by Judith C. Brown that surely drew Verhoeven to it like a moth to a lightbulb, titled "Immodest Acts: The Life Of A Lesbian Nun In Renaissance Italy", Benedetta may have the lurid plot synopsis and plot elements that seem designed to surely titillate viewers, but it allows for Verhoeven to work in his typically subversive style, confidently and maturely exploring ideas of love, faith, and power in the hands of those who seek to manipulate a situation to best suit their own needs.

Virginie Efira plays Benedetta, a woman who has given her life to god since she was a small child. Occasionally butting heads with her Abbess (Charlotte Rampling), Benedetta finds herself confused and succumbing to a healthy does of pleasures of the flesh when she convinces the convent to take in a young woman named Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia). Then there's a case of stigmata, which leads to a change in structure at the convent, as well as divided opinion of just how holy Benedetta might be.

Written by Verhoeven and David Birke (who worked with the director on Elle), Benedetta is a film you can take a number of different ways. There are times when it just feels like nunsploitation, that's true, but a lot of the film points out religious hypocrisy, and questioning why love and lust are such a great sin, especially when the person battling such "sin" is also apparently responsible for a lot of good. And there's an interesting look at just what constitutes a miracle or an act of god, considering how god is supposed to move through people. This is brought to the fore when Benedetta is questioned about the cause of her stigmata.

Of course, being a Verhoeven film, there's also more to dig into. The way those who purport to do good can be complicit in evil deeds by simply remaining silent is another important point, but there's also the double-standards that become more obvious when learning about the behaviour of those who place themselves as morally superior to all others.

Efira is excellent in the main role, a perfect mixture of innocence and possible deceit. I have been a fan of her since seeing In Bed With Victoria and Sybil (both recommended), and I went into this knowing that there would be at least one great performance. Rampling, someone who I think can be hit or miss, depending on the writing, also does great work. Her character is justifiably cynical, yet also tries often to do things as they should be done (in terms of the religious hierarchy). Patakia is a little bit weaker than the two more experienced actresses that she ends up working with, but she does well in conveying someone with a wild streak who has found the convent as a salvation, more than a calling. The other very important character in the whole story is played by Lambert Wilson, who is excellent at acting superior to everyone around him, looking to maintain control of people even as his grasp on the situation seems to become untenable.

Surprisingly tasteful throughout, and I realise I am saying this about a film in which a character uses a piece of religious iconography to craft a wooden dildo, Benedetta is a very well-made film that will only shock those who are more easily affected by nudity and any exploration of human sexuality. Sex isn't evil, it's not a sin, and the way it is used by those who want to take power away from Benedetta is typical of attitudes still disappointingly prevalent in modern society. 

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Swimming Pool (2003)

Written and directed by François Ozon, working with writer Emmanuèle Bernheim and translator Sionann O'Neill, Swimming Pool is a sun-soaked psychosexual drama that turns into more of a standard thriller in the third act, anchored by two fantastic lead performances.

Charlotte Rampling is Sarah Morton, a writer who is given the use of her publisher's vacation home in Southern France. She writes detective thrillers, usually, and needs complete peace and quiet for her working process. It turns out, however, that her publisher (who is played by Charles Dance) has forgotten that his daughter (Julie, played by Ludivine Sagnier) is also due to spend some time at the house. Things soon become tense as Sarah and Julie clash, the former trying to get into the right headspace for her writing while the latter keeps herself busy with a series of one-night stands.

Moving between English and French, Swimming Pool is a fascinating character study of two people who are very comfortable in the personas that they choose to reveal to one another, yet completely out of their comfort zone when needing some real support. Both also have an arrogance about them, but for different reasons. Rampling has her assumed position of superiority simply by being older, and a polite Brit, while Sagnier has youth and a lack of care for any consequences, for most of the runtime anyway.

Rampling is excellent in the role of Sarah, as is Sagnier with her embodiment of Julie. Both leads skirt perilously close to their characters being completely unsympathetic, yet they manage to keep you watching as things develop between them into what could be a friendship, if no other agendas cause it to become unbalanced. Jean-Marie Lamour is Franck, a man who ends up inadvertently caught between the two women for an evening, and he also does a great job. Dance is only really in the movie for the start and end, bookending things with moments that show a big difference in the dynamic between himself and Rampling's character.

Although it takes a while to find its feet, Swimming Pool turns into something riveting and thought-provoking, especially when you get to a final scene that leaves things enjoyably ambiguous. It's about tapping in to your innermost desires and impulses as you try to access your creative side, it's about allowing yourself the freedom to just enjoy the company of others (good conversation, some dancing, a healthy helping of sex). It's even about just becoming someone else for the duration of your holiday in a foreign country, letting the mix of hot sunshine and cool water help you to view yourself as someone a bit steamier than usual.

Fans of Ozon will know that so many of his movies revolve around the idea of identity, what people can discover about others, what they can discover about themselves, and Swimming Pool is in line with his preferred thematic exploration. There may be a number of characters here, but it's all about Sarah discovering some other parts of Sarah.

7/10

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Red Sparrow (2018)

Although I didn't really dislike Red Sparrow while it was on, it's not a film I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, mainly because of the way it constantly wavers between being too slick and neat and being bloody and faux-gritty.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Dominika, a Russian ballerina who ends up struggling after an injury cuts her promising career short. She is then approached by her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts) with a job offer - seduce a local gangster. That job ends in death, and Dominika is then given the option of either training to become an intelligence agent or being killed, to ensure there are no witnesses left. It's not much of a choice, and Dominika also has an ill mother (Joely Richardson) to consider. She starts her training, which soon puts her at odds with those around her, due to her strong will and determination, and then ends up heading to Budapest, where she meets an American agent (Nate, played by Joel Edgerton) who may end up being able to help her with her predicament. Or maybe she will just do her job, leaving a number of corpses in her week.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, Red Sparrow is certainly an ambitious film, considering the attempt to make an old-fashioned spy movie that will appeal to a wider age range than most. Lawrence did a decent job of mixing pure entertainment with interesting psychological moments in his three movies that made up three of the four The Hunger Games series so it's a shame that he can't do just as well here. Perhaps some of the fault lies with the script, by Justin Haythe, or perhaps the source material, written by Jason Matthews, was just never suited to what feels like a more sanitised telling of the story (despite a few strong moments).

Lawrence does a good job in the lead role, and her accent remains consistently impressive throughout. She's given good support by other fine Russians, such as Richardson, Charlotte Rampling,  Ciaran Hinds, and Jeremy Irons (obviously all picked for their talent and name recognition, as opposed to their actual . . . Russian-ness). Schoenaerts feels more obviously authentic, despite being Belgian, and he does a lot with a role that could have easily been either a pantomime villain or just a forgettable plot device.

Red Sparrow gets a few things right. The performances, the generally clean shot compositions and style (this is not a film for anyone looking out for the next Bourne), a lot of the plotting. But it doesn't ever do anything to make it stand out, cinematically, and the 140-minute runtime feels overlong by a good 20-30 minutes. But it's that inconsistent approach to the material that probably harms it the most. There are scenes that Lawrence knows can't be shown to be cool or sexy, he'd be in big trouble if he tried, but then he tries to keep everything moving along in between those scenes by utilising the star power of his leading lady, who inevitably comes across at times as, well, cool and sexy. It stops the film from having one true identity throughout.

Worth a watch, I'm just not sure of anyone who will love it, and I can't see it being one that anyone will choose to revisit more than once or twice.

6/10

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Angel Heart (1987)

A blend of horror and noir, Angel Heart is a highly regarded movie, and with good reason. If you haven't seen it yet then get to it. If you have seen it, give it a rewatch and find out just how rewarding it is on repeat viewings.

The story sees detective Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) hired by Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to find a missing singer named Johnny Favorite. As Angel starts to make progress, tracking down those who knew Favorite and trying to find out more about his past in order to lead him to Favorite's whereabouts in the present, people start to turn up dead. The finger points to Angel in each instance, but with the growing danger comes a chance to spend some time with the gorgeous Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet).

Directed by Alan Parker, who also adapted the book by William Hjortsberg into screenplay form, this is a film dripping with atmosphere and full of wonderful details throughout, both in the visual style and design, and also in much of the dialogue. It's a hot and sweaty movie, taking place mostly in New Orleans, a film that can almost make you smell the surroundings. It also builds and builds towards a third act full of real, impressive, horror and nastiness.

Rourke has, in my opinion, never been better (but I have yet to explore more of his movies from this time, so that opinion is subject to change). He's a permanently rumpled, doggedly determined, figure. A man who starts to suspect that he's being played for a schmuck, even as he keeps digging for answers. De Niro is a lot of fun in the role of Cyphre, charming and quietly menacing in almost all of his scenes. Lisa Bonet is sexy as hell in a role that couldn't be further removed from her sweet, wholesome turn in The Cosby Show. Charlotte Rampling is also very good, playing almost the polar opposite of Bonet's character. And there are also small, enjoyable turns from Brownie McGhee, Michael Higgins, Elizabeth Whitcraft and Pruitt Taylor Vince.

As shocking, at times, as it is entertaining, I rate Angel Heart as a near-perfect movie experience and a bit of a modern classic. There's nothing to fault in terms of the construction and technical side of things, and it's all topped off by a central performance that ranks as one of the very best.

9/10

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Babylon A. D. (2008)

Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, who also helped to co-write the shambolic screenplay, Babylon A. D. is a movie that I sincerely hoped to enjoy. I'd heard/read a number of bad reviews when it opened back in 2008 but there are many times when I feel that critics forget to consider the comfort value of some mindless entertainment. Unfortunately, everyone who warned viewers away from this film did so with good reason. It's a mess, it borders on being completely incompetent in a number of places and it is, worst of all, dull as ditchwater.

Vin Diesel plays Toorop, an experienced mercenary who takes on the job of delivering a package from Eastern Europe to America. That package is a young girl, Aurora (Melanie Thierry), accompanied by a religious guardian named Sister Rebekah (Michelle Yeoh). Toorop is determined to get the job done, something he will manage by trusting nobody around him, but he starts to think more and more about the consequences of his actions as various parties try to get a hold of the girl. Is she some kind of saviour? Is she a weapon? She may be neither, but Toorop vows to decide her fate if he discovers that others can use her to cause some major death and destruction.

Based on the novel Babylon Babies, by Maurice G. Dantec, Babylon A. D.  is a messy bag of cliches and bad decisions, unhelped by the fact that none of the main characters are all that likeable. Vin Diesel tries hard in a lead role fairly similiar to many of his other lead roles, but Michelle Yeoh is stuck with embarrassingly bad material to work with and Melanie Thierry is shockingly bad from her first moment to the last. Gerard Depardieu is fun, but not in the movie for long enough to make a big enough difference, Mark Strong is as good as ever and Charlotte Rampling doesn't do her C.V. any favours. The appearance of Lambert Wilson simply serves to remind viewers that he was in two of The Matrix movies, sci-fi action films that hold up as the exact opposite of this trash.

Fans of the movie will insist that there's a vision amidst the mess worth struggling to recognise. Mathieu Kassovitz, by all accounts, certainly didn't have an easy, pleasant experience getting this made. But I can't help thinking that the film is SO bad, riddled with so many errors and poor choices, that nothing could be salvaged from it. Action scenes are badly edited and painfully boring, the dialogue is often either cringe-inducing or completely laughable and all of the flaws are made worse by the fact that the film takes itself so seriously and seems to think that it's full of clever, thought-provoking stuff.

It's not.

2/10

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