Mubi Monday: Calm With Horses (2019)

Let's be completely honest from the start here, Calm With Horses is nothing that we haven't already seen done, and done well, in dozens of other dramas from the UK and Ireland. Thankfully, this has atmosphere and performances that make it very much worth your time.

Cosmo Jarvis plays Arm, an ex-boxer who now works as the muscle for a notorious local family. He's often alongside Dympna (Barry Keoghan), and the family appreciates that he will do whatever is asked of him. Until he becomes hesitant about dealing with Flannigan (Liam Carney), a man accused of a transgression that gives him a death sentence. Stuck between his employers and his own morality, Arm is also struggling to be a good father, and trying to accept that his ex-partner, Ursula (Niamh Algar), is ready to move away from the area to somewhere that could be much better for their young son.

While I have seen Jarvis in a number of different movies over the years, I have not singled him out for praise, although he was been consistently good, and great in Lady Macbeth. This is probably his best performance yet though, strong and ready for violence, but also aware of how much better life can be when people can be softer and peaceful with one another. Everyone else here is very good (Keoghan and Algar just as you'd expect, and Carney, David Wilmot, Ned Dennehy, and Anthony Welsh all perfect in their respective roles, whether they're acting scared, scary, or slightly oblivious to the violent world that is just one side-step away from them), but the film belongs to Jarvis.

This might be the first feature directed by Nick Rowland, but he helps himself enormously by trusting Joe Murtaugh to adapt Colin Barrett's short story, as well as assembling a cast of superb talent. Getting Jarvis in place was probably the most important part, a solid anchor point that everything else can be attached to, but everything is treated with due care and a faith in the material.

It may not be the most cinematic work, and there isn't anything I want to highlight, but everything is in service of the script and the acting in a way that is reassuring. Everyone behind the camera has done their job in a way that doesn't call attention to their valuable contributions, and that is sometimes a lot harder to do than it might seem.

Grim stuff, but not without a fleeting ray of sunshine breaking through the gathering clouds, Calm With Horses is a film I would happily recommend to anyone after something moving and powerful. There are one or two moments that come close to being too uncomfortable to sit through, but Murtaugh and Rowland know just how far to take things, and how to keep the central character riveting as he tries to hold in the anger that is constantly beating him up internally.

9/10

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Warfare (2025)

There has been at least one comedian who has noted that America will invade other countries, kill a lot of people, and then make movies decades later about how it made them so sad. It happened after Vietnam, of course, and it has happened even more frequently in the years after the two times that the USA ended up in Iraq for reasons totally not to do with oil. Warfare is another in this ever-increasing selection of movies.

Co-written and co-directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza, the latter a former US Navy SEAL and a military advisor for some in the film industry, Warfare is interested in nothing more than placing viewers right in the heart of a tense war-time situation. Sadly, once again, it really is interested in nothing more than that, similarly to how Civil War was interested in nothing more than placing viewers as passive spectators in the unfolding titular scenario. 

While much more intense and impactful on a visceral level than his previous movie, Warfare underlines the fact that Garland no longer wants to use art to provide any insight into complex aspects of the human experience. There are main characters we don't really get to know (despite learning some names and superficial identifiers for them), they're ready to fight an enemy for reasons that are never probed and examined, and it's only the bullets and tanks appearing onscreen that will save viewers from slipping into a bored daze.

I get it, I really do. War is hell, and it's also really boring for people in between major life and death moments. But that boredom is also accompanied by tension and a sense of paranoia (although just because American soldiers are paranoid doesn't mean that lots of people around them aren't out to get them). Garland and Mendoza may aim to provide an immersive and authentic experience of life during a specific wartime, but it's all so disappointingly . . . pointless. People are familiar with this particular kind of modern warfare (and I can recommend at least half a dozen movies to anyone who isn't . . . each one better than this) and I would argue that none of the immersion and authenticity here is new or unique. 

The cast includes D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Joseph Quinn, Aaron Mackenzie, Michael Gandolfini, and many more. Everyone does good work, but they're avatars, coming perilously close to being portals into some Call Of Duty game for those who prefer their wars without any context or complexity. I'd offer a financial reward to anyone who could name more than two of the main characters without double-checking the details online.

There's a level of skill on display here, technically, and that's one of the things that helps this to be a bit better than Civil War. It's a very close call though. Alex Garland said a while ago that he intended to take a break from directing. I hope he does so soon, because he's at risk of sliding further and further from the highs of the first half of his filmography into the tedium and mediocrity of his more recent projects.

4/10

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Prime Time: Lady Macbeth (2016)

Okay, first thing's first, in the interest of clarity and transparency, I rewatched another film last night that I was going to review today for the standard Prime Time slot. And then I found that I had already written a full review for it. I thought it was one I was due to rewatch, but that turned out not to be the case. So I had to regroup. This morning. Now. Lady Macbeth is available as a free choice on Prime IF you are able to grab a 7-day free trial for the BFI Player. I wouldn't usually make it an option for this particular review slot, but desperate times require desperate measures. Normal service should resume shortly.

Everyone knows that Florence Pugh is a star nowadays, and many people will have realised that from quite early on in her career, but I remember the first time I was impressed by her versatility and presence. I had seen three films in the spaces of a few weeks, all featuring her in a main role, and I could have easily been watching three different actresses. Those films were Midsommar, Fighting With My Family, and this one, Lady Macbeth.

Pugh plays Katherine Lester here, a woman who we see trapped in a loveless marriage. There's a decent estate, but that's all. Things look due to improve slightly, however, when Katherine's husband (Alexander, played by Paul Hilton) and her father-in-law (Boris, played by Christopher Fairbank) head off for a while. That allows Katherine to enjoy some freedom, which also allows her to enjoy some carnal pleasure with one of the workers, Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis). Secret trysts don't always stay secret for long though, and the stage is set for some treachery, murder, and some souls to be forever stained with blood.

Based on a book by Nikolai Leskov, adapted into feature film form by Alice Birch, who made a hell of a debut here and has then gone from strength to strength throughout the last decade, Lady Macbeth is also the first feature from director William Oldroyd. It seems to have been a perfect convergence of emerging talent, allowing the central trio of director, writer, and star to create something phenomenal without any weight of expectation. It's a slow and quiet film, with many shots composed to create visuals that wouldn't look out of place in a portrait gallery, but it's also constantly enthralling as it builds intensity on the way to what everyone expects to be a dark and downbeat final act.

Pugh is perfect in her role, moving deftly from oppressed to oppressor with grace and a mounting strength. It would be easy for her performance to overshadow the others, but praise is also due to Jarvis, Hilton, Fairbank, Naomi Ackie (playing another staff member, Anna), Golda Rosheuvel, and Anton Palmer for working so well with the material that they still feel as if they matter, even when it becomes clear that those around our leading lady are there to be manipulated and dealt with by our leading lady.

While there are few susprises in the material, it's certainly laid out for you in the title of the film, the treats come from how it is all presented. There's a nice balance of dirt and polish, helped by Ari Wegner's cinematography, as well as the entire team behind the camera. The wonderfully ominous music from Dan Jones also helps, underpinning what basically feels like a fresh spin on a very familiar tale with a darkness that resonates through even the very occasional moments of light and fresh air.

Those who may have been put off by the title, perhaps thinking it would be something too beholden to the language of Shakespeare, should shrug off that wariness. This is a stunning modern classic that is well worth your time.

9/10

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