Prime Time: Hidden Agenda (1990)

There's always reason to be wary when about to watch a film set during, or around, "The Troubles", which is all I'm going to say about the setting for Hidden Agenda here. But I was comforted when I saw the main cast for this film, and further comforted by seeing it was directed by Ken Loach. That didn't mean it would necessarily be any less difficult to watch, but everything would hopefully be handled with a sensitivity and intelligence that runs through most of Loach's filmography.

Everything begins with the death of an American human rights lawyer in Northern Ireland. There's a reason given for his shooting (by police who apparently believed he was armed and dangerous), but the messiness of the whole thing leads to an investigation headed up by Peter Kerrigan (Brian Cox). Kerrigan wants to remain impartial and fair, and he is on the side of Ingrid Jessner (Frances McDormand), a young woman who was Sullivan's assistant, and suspects foul play. Can the two upset those in power without facing some serious, and potentially deadly, repercussions?

Written by Jim Allen, who worked with Loach on stage and screen many times over the years, Hidden Agenda uses the situation at the heart of the tale to look at those who profit from manipulating things from behind the scenes. It also shows how authorities often make excuses to avoid "playing by the rules", making the most of a turbulent and scary situation to tie up any loose ends and maintain their own, as the title says, hidden agenda. Whether fighting against enemies in our own streets or on a remote battlefield, there are rules that govern such things, even if they seem ridiculous in the face of such brutality and bloodshed, and when those rules aren't adhered to then it can be terrifying to think of just how easily people can have carte blanche to reshape narratives and territories.

Loach does well to tread much more carefully than his protagonist. This isn't about being on one side or the other. It's about trying to see proper justice done in a time when many decided they could act with impunity, considering themselves above the law (whether they were part of the establishment or fighting against it).

Cox is fantastic in his role, as strong-willed and smart as ever, and it's fascinating to watch him try his best to keep his moral compass pointed the right way while so many attempts are made to spin the needle in many different directions. McDormand is also very good, able to play someone in peril without seeming like a helpless "damsel in distress". The fact that she is American helps to make her character feel slightly ill-prepared for the true depth of the waters that she has waded into. Jim Norton is equally good, playing a member of the police force who may or may not know more about the killing than he's letting on, and Maurice Roëves excels as someone with a pivotal role in a piece of evidence that could change the entire nature of the investigation, if it can be corroborated.

This may feel like a bit of a dated snapshot to some nowadays, but I would argue that a number of current events make this just as relevant as ever. You can easily connect the dots from this to the importance of keeping checks and balances on Presidential power, for example, or the many times a "battle against terrorism" has been used to strip away rights and kill huge parts of a civilian population. In many ways, the most quaint thing about this is the fact that those pulling the strings did actually try to hide their agenda. That doesn't happen so much nowadays. People just keep over-reaching, and nobody else seems able or willing to force them back into their established boundaries. 

8/10

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Women Talking (2022)

Written and directed by Sarah Polley, based on a book by Miriam Toews that was based on a real-life incident, Women Talking is the heavy-hitting Best Picture nominee that I was least looking forward to watching. It felt like the subject matter would be too grim, and the presentation of the premise (summed up by the title, it is essentially just women talking for most of the runtime) didn’t cry out to me as something cinematic. But I have been wrong before, and I suspected that Women Talking would be worth the time and emotional investment, even if it wouldn’t be high up on my “best films of 2022” list.

I may have to wait until I one day muster the strength to revisit this, but the obvious “surprise” that I should reveal now is that Women Talking WOULD actually end up on my “best films of 2022” list. It’s an incredible and impressive work, and easily the best directorial work yet from Polley.

I should provide a bit more information about the plot. The setting is a small, isolated, religious community. The women in that community are horrified when it is revealed that many of them have been drugged and raped by the men. They have to gather together to discuss their options. They can stay and do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. And they only have limited time to decide, while the men of the community are away to help the rapists avoid any serious repercussions. The rest of the film shows the women debating two of the three choices, whether to stay or leave, and they are helped in their debate and discussion by one man who is still trustworthy and supportive.

Although showing a horrific situation specific to a certain setting, Women Talking uses the premise to inevitably show the difficulties that face any woman stuck in an abusive situation. The variety of viewpoints, all from women considering their own situations, show the full range of emotions and thoughts that would probably go through the mind of any one woman finding themselves in this awful situation.

The focus is very much on the dialogue here, in terms of both individual lines and exchanges between people of opposing views, and Polley helps herself no end by assembling a cast of talent who all rise to the challenging material. Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, and Judith Ivey (my personal favourite of the nominal leads) are all given at least one moment to metaphorically punch viewers in the gut, Ben Whishaw is very lovely and sweet as the man helping them to gather their thoughts and make a final decision, and there’s a small role for Frances McDormand that allows her to make a strong impression with only a few minutes of screentime. Others worth mentioning are August Winter (playing someone transgender who provides yet another interesting nuance to the ongoing conversation), Michelle McLeod, Sheila McCarthy, and Shayla Brown, all helping to show more and more ways in which the lives of the women have been impacted over the years by the behaviour of the men.

As weighty and dialogue-heavy as this is, Polley excels at knowing how to treat the material onscreen. We’re shown the aftermath of horrific events, not the abuse itself, and there’s enough movement to stop it from feeling like a stage play, which could so easily have been the case. A lot of scenes are visually drab, as you might expect with a film about this kind of community, but moments of sunshine make infrequent appearances, providing welcome respite from the pain and sadness. I would like to read the Toews book one day, but this feels like a great achievement in how it has been moved from the page to the screen.

Women Talking may not be a film that you want to rush out to see, but it’s a strong and confident work of art. And you might find yourself considering a repeat viewing of it as soon as the end credits roll. I certainly did.

9/10

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Noir-vember: The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

A film I haven’t seen since I picked it up on VHS when it was first released, I was very keen to revisit The Man Who Wasn’t There, a film that arguably remains the most overlooked title in the filmography of the Coen brothers (certainly from the past couple of decades anyway).

Billy Bob Thornton plays the main character, Ed Crane. He runs a barbershop with his brother, Frank (Michael Badalucco), and plods along in his marriage to Doris (Frances McDormand). A chance encounter with a customer (Jon Polito) who has a grand business plan leads to Ed setting out to blackmail Big Dave Brewster (James Gandolfini). He knows that Dave and Doris have been having an affair, but this perceived opportunity for success could lead to disaster. And death.

Shot in beautiful black and white (courtesy of the great Roger Deakins), The Man Who Wasn’t There may not be as sharp as other Coen brothers movies, and it may run too closely to some of their best works, but it remains a fantastic slice of straightforward noir. The brothers don’t want to twist things too much here, they just want to tell a story well worth telling.

The cast are almost all perfect, with Thornton at his laconic best in the lead role. He has rarely been an actor who exaggerates his mannerisms or catches your eye with histrionics (the excellent Sling Blade aside), making him an ideal choice to carry a film with this title. McDormand is as good as ever, playing a flawed woman who clearly still has love there for her husband. Gandolfini and Polito both make a strong impression with more limited screentime and Tony Shalhoub has one of his best movie roles, playing an expensive lawyer who believes himself unable to lose a court case. There are also enjoyable turns from Badalucco, Richard Jenkins, and Scarlett Johansson, with the latter representing a fresh start, optimism, and purity in the mind of Thornton’s character.

It would be wrong to try and convince anyone that this is one of the very best movies from the Coen brothers. That isn’t true. But it would also be wrong to leave it languishing in the forgotten limbo it seems to have been cast into over the past twenty years. It may not be a masterpiece, and it isn’t out to feel fresh or full of surprises, but it is a lovingly crafted piece of drama, using a top-notch cast to draw you into a tale of love, death, and greed for a couple of hours.

8/10

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Æon Flux (2005)

There's a small part of me that is glad that Æon Flux isn't all that good, because otherwise I would have to spend a lot more time on the internet shouting (metaphorically) at people who have yet to recognise the greatness of Karyn Kusama. She's the director here, and this is the only movie I have seen from her that I haven't liked. And even with it being such a messy failure, I cannot bring myself to truly hate it.

Charlize Theron is the lead, playing the titular character. It's the future. People tend to generally be happy. But there's something amiss, which is why a group of rebels are trying to overthrow the government. Flux is an assassin in that group of rebels, and she may be the one person with the key to unlock everything. Obviously.

Only the second feature film from Kusama, working with writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (who would both do much better work collaborating on her later movies), Æon Flux feels very much like what it is, a strange vision from a talented artist who then had that vision meddled with by people who had no idea what to really do with it. The main plot is simple enough to allow Kusama to take pleasure in the small details of the world depicted onscreen, but all of that potential pleasure is ruined by the absolute mess elsewhere. It's hard to care about any of the main characters, most of the action scenes are edited clumsily, at best, and none of the quirky humour can land while viewers are distracted by, well, everything else.

Theron is as good here, overall, as she usually is. I mean she's definitely a movie star, and this is a star vehicle, but it's hard to judge her performance while also considering what she's given to work with, and how everything was then edited. Marton Csokas and Jonny Lee Miller are key figures in the government, and Miller at least gets to have some more fun than the majority of the cast. Sophie Okonedo has to stay pretty straight-faced while portraying another rebel who has had hands grafted on to where her feet used to be, and both Frances McDormand and Pete Postlethwaite are given roles that very much waste their talents. Nobody else is worth mentioning, apart from Paterson Joseph, but that's only because I like Paterson Joseph so much.

Having not seen any of the original animated series that first introduced viewers to this character, I cannot say how this compares to that (although I am going to assume that it wouldn't be a favourable comparison). All I can go on is the final result, what we got on our screens. If it wasn't for Theron, it's hard to see how this would appeal to anyone. Look a bit harder, however, and there are fleeting moments that can help to make this more bearable. And it's definitely a film I would love to see in a director's cut form.
4/10

There's a disc available here.
Americans can buy it here.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

I HOPE that anyone who knows me, even a little bit, knows that I am never a contrarian just for the sake of stirring the pot or getting people into a state of anger. In fact, I try as often as I can to ignore the extreme negatives and positives you can find everywhere on the internet and continue to just form my own opinion about movies, which is the way everyone should do it (then you can have more fun later discussing things with those who agree, and those who don't).

So I didn't make the decision lightly to label the much-loved Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri the worst film directed by either of the McDonagh brothers. You have to remember two things here. First of all, I am one of the few people who really enjoyed War On Everyone. Second, I am not saying this is a terrible film. It's still better than Transformers: The Last Knight, for example. Just not by that much.

The plot revolves around Frances McDormand's character, Mildred. She has been waiting too long to get any justice after her daughter was raped and murdered. So she decides to use three billboards situated on a fairly quiet road to question the work ethic of Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). This upsets Willoughby and his staff (particularly the dim and abusive Dixon, played by Sam Rockwell), it upsets Mildred's son (Lucas Hedges), and it starts to turn the town against Mildred as they fail to understand why she would make such a statement.

The performances in this film are, for the most part, pretty great. McDormand does brilliant work, Rockwell is as great as ever, and Harrelson does well (when he isn't delivering lines in voiceover like he's reading the back of a packet of Coco Pops). Caleb Landry Jones is also very good, playing the lad responsible for leasing out the billboard space, Hedges is excellent as the teenage son watching his mother make a stand he doesn't see as being of any use, Peter Dinklage is a lot of fun as someone hoping to take Mildred out on a date, and John Hawkes is an a-grade asshole. The main weakness in the film is Abbie Cornish, who gives what feels like a half-hearted performance, hampered by the fact that she is also given the worst of the dialogue in the film and just seems far too young for her character (she plays the wife of Harrelson's character).

Direction is good enough, with McDonagh really pulling out the stops in a couple of moments that hammer home (almost literally) some of the damage that characters are willing to inflict upon one another, and there's definitely an interesting theme being clumsily explored here, but it's all almost undone by the script, surprisingly enough. While there are gems here, especially in the scenes that have McDormand interacting directly with the local law enforcement, there are also lines that drop in the middle of scenes like anvils looking for a Wile E. Coyote to squash into an accordion shape. And that's just individual lines I am talking about (poor Cornish, I felt genuinely sorry for a couple of the lines that she had to deliver, which could have only been made a bit less cringeworthy if McDonagh had given her any decent characterisation beforehand). As the film starts to develop in the overlong second half, everything starts to become more heavy-handed and also a bit, well, implausible and ridiculous. What began as a small, impactful, drama turns into something that feels unsure of how far it wants to take things, and in what direction it wants to go. Yes, this is in line with the main characters but it doesn't feel deliberate or well thought out. It feels careless, displaced, and even rather immature.

There's enough here to enjoy, and I feel sorry for those trying to dismiss the movie as something it isn't (I can't say any more because of spoilers), and I still encourage people to support the McDonagh brothers ahead of so many other writers and directors who never try to engage and challenge their audience, but this didn't work half as well for me as it seems to have worked for so many others.

6/10

Blood Simple (1984)

Blood Simple is the fantastic neo-noir that announced the arrival of the Coen brothers as a fantastic talent to keep an eye on. Joel and Ethan shared writing and directorial duties (although Ethan is uncredited in the latter department), and their working M.O. hasn't really changed in the near-thirty years since. Which, when the results are so often this good, we can all be thankful for.

Dan Hedaya is the wronged husband who hires a sleazy detective (M. Emmet Walsh) to deal with his wife (Frances McDormand) and her lover (John Getz). What unfolds is a tale of treachery, confusion and mistaken identity, all shown in scenes that deliberately take time to dwell on the nastier moments. This isn't a gratuitous movie, but it's also not a movie wanting to gloss over any pain or death that could otherwise just be used as a stepping stone from one cool moment to the next.

The script is pretty lean, but has a few great lines of dialogue in there (especially from Walsh), and the direction is impressive in the way it chooses to show the events in a manner that's almost cold and clinical at times. This is noir with a roughness, slick in the way it is all played out, but also slick with blood.

John Getz is a little bit bland in his role, but he's just a man caught up in the midst of a very bad situation. Nobody here garners a great deal of sympathy, especially not Hedaya or Walsh, so Getz is someone to root for by default, not by his character or moral compass. McDormand is aloof at times, with the Coens enjoying playing with viewers who will wonder whether she's a classic femme fatale, or also just a victim of circumstance.

It's also worth noting that one Mr. Barry Sonnenfeld worked on Blood Simple as the DP (a role he would fill again for the Coens with work on both Raising Arizona and, arguably his best, Miller's Crossing).

The film looks fantastic, especially for a debut feature, contains some great performances and some of that pitch black humour that the Coens have since become famous for. If you like their work then you'll certainly enjoy this. Simple.

8/10

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