Mubi Monday: The Fall Of Sir Douglas Weatherford (2026)

You may struggle to find many glowing reviews for this film, but everything else I have seen written about it online seems to share one common compliment: Peter Mullan is fantastic in the lead role. If you have also seen all of those other reviews then you may as well skip this one. I'm in complete agreement with most people. This is an okay film, at best, but it's lifted up by Peter Mullan being fantastic in the lead role.

Mullan plays Kenneth, a tour guide in a small Scottish town who takes great pride in telling people all about a local notable figure, Sir Douglas Weatherford. Nobody really seems to understand the historical importance of the man though, or maybe Kenneth is in the wrong for trying to maintain the legacy of someone who has already been forgotten, if he was ever known at all, by so many. The town suddenly becomes very busy, however, when a very popular TV show is filmed there, resulting in an influx of fans, which means even more people who aren't all that interested in what Kenneth has to tell them.

What could have been a fantastic comedy drama exploring the ideas of tourism, the preservation of history, and small communities trying to stay thriving and relevant, often by any means necessary, is, sadly, a huge missed opportunity. Having lived in Edinburgh for numerous decades, I know very well what division is caused when businesses and entire areas focus on catering to the money coming in from the tourist industry. I also know that I have enjoyed visiting various small villages and sites throughout the UK, and further afield, and have been more than happy to play the role of the grinning tourist happy to be the centre of so much attention, relatively speaking, as I decided to spend some of my money on tat and souvenirs that often end up languishing in a box somewhere in the darkness of the attic. 

Having given himself such a great starting point to work from, writer-director Seán Dunn helps himself further with a very good cast, a perfect location for the fictional area being depicted, and a unique and wonderful score from Gazelle Twin. Which all makes it even more frustrating that he doesn't do well enough when it comes to the clarity and sharpness of the points that he wants to make.

It would be redundant for me to praise Mullan here once again, take that as given, although it is worth saying that this is, for all the faults of the film itself, one of the best roles he's ever had, in terms of screentime and being allowed to carry a movie with a mix of humour and grit. Jakob Oftebro is pretty good, playing the star actor who becomes the lightning rod for what our main character so strongly dislikes, Lewis MacDougall is fun as a youngster who ends up assisting in an attempted push back against the pandering to the TV show fanbase, and both Saskia Ashdown and Gayle Rankin do very good work as women who, for different reasons, end up concerned for men in their lives. 

I didn't chuckle much, I didn't really stay invested in the fate of the main character, and I didn't appreciate the many ways in which this fell flat. I do consider some of the film thought-provoking, but only in the way that I was often thinking about how there was a much better film to be made from this concept. But, and feel free to repeat after me, Mullan is fantastic in the lead role.

4/10

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Mubi Monday: Her Smell (2018)

I haven't liked everything that I've seen from writer-director Alex Ross Perry. In fact, I really disliked the last time I watched one of his films that starred Elisabeth Moss. But I try to remain open-minded about every film I choose to watch, and I'd heard some other people give positive opinions of Her Smell.

This is the story of a self-destructive rocker (Becky Something, played by Moss) who we watch for the first half of the movie sink further and further into a dark hole. Absolutely narcissistic, deeply unpleasant, and unable to see how her behaviour is negatively impacting the career trajectory of herself and her bandmates, Becky absolutely refuses to get the help that she so desperately needs. Up to a point. The second half of the movie is a quieter, and more fragile, exploration of someone trying to see if they can embrace sobriety without losing their creative spark.

Look, I can completely understand if people struggle so much during the first half of Her Smell that they give up on the film. It's a real chore, forcing viewers to spend time with an absolute nightmare of a main character. It doesn't feel forced though, nor does it feel fake, and all of this bad stuff is there to show how far Becky needs to move forward to escape the perils of her own mentality. It's not just that Her Smell presents that character forced into making a major life decision, but Perry somehow gets you on her side as people observe Becky and wonder about whether or not she can really change her ways.

Moss is fantastic in the lead role, happy to be as horrible and repugnant as possible. She's surprisingly believable as this kind of rocker, and does equally well with the hysterical moments and the much calmer ones. Agyness Deyn is also very good, as Marielle Hell (a bandmate who has been put through the wringer far too many times), and so is Gayle Rankin (playing Ali van der Wolff). Dan Stevens is an ex-partner trying to do the best by a young child, Eric Stoltz is a stressed manager, and other musicians are played by Cara Delevingne, Ashley Benson, Dylan Gelula, and Amber Heard, all fitting nicely into their roles. It would be remiss of me not to mention Virginia Madsen, playing a mother who doesn't really know the right way to deal with her daughter.

We've seen this story before, quite a few times, but I cannot think of a time when it was presented in quite the same way, with the focus being on that worry about a calmed mind losing any creativity. That's a common fear for many artists, of course, but Perry really puts it front and centre here, having the central characters explore and discuss the idea, as opposed to leaving it hanging in the air like an unspoken fear. I appreciated the way this poked and prodded the situation, particularly when showing how a band keeps working under great strain while they hunger for more of the success they have tasted, and I think the ending makes the difficult first half worthwhile. It's a close call though, and others will strongly disagree. 

7/10

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Shudder Saturday: Bad Things (2023)

Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) has just inherited her grandmother's hotel at the start of Bad Things. That kind of sudden surprise could easily be the start of a sweet romance, the springboard for an "underdog overcomes the odds" feelgood flick, or just an outright comedy. The fact that Ruthie is staying at the hotel with her partner, Cal (Hari Nef), a friend named Maddie (Rad Pereira), and another friend, but one who might want more than just friendship (Fran, played by Annabelle Dexter-Jones), maintains all of that potential for a selection of light-hearted options. Bad Things isn't light-hearted though. It's a horror movie, and one that seems to focus most of all on absence, whether it's the absence of real guests in the hotel, the absence of real regret, or the absence of Ruthie's mother, a woman who has helped to make Ruthie the mess she seems to be.

Much like a certain other horror movie set in a fairly empty hotel, Bad Things is all about the deteriorating mental state of the main character, a fragility and nerviness that is exacerbated by others around her. Things are strained between Ruthie and Cal, something Maddie is very much aware of, and Fran seems intent on adding to that strain, especially if it means that she can convince Ruthie to choose her over anyone else. Meanwhile, a jogging couple keep turning up around, and sometimes inside, the hotel, and there are a few other individuals who seem to appear just long enough to make people doubt their sanity. 

Writer-director Stewart Thorndike might not be making her first feature, that would be Lyle (2014), a film that sounds interesting enough for me to seek out at some point, but she definitely works well with fairly limited resources to deliver an impressively unique and female-focused horror that moves slowly, but purposefully, from an atmosphere of carelessness and slight worry to one of panic and real danger. Cinematographer Grant Greenberg prowls the corridors of the main building, often showing other characters at a slight distance, whether they are recognisable to viewers or some of the strange interlopers about to unnerve one or two of the leads, and the score by Jason Falkner is a brilliant blend of the simple, the quirky, and the outright menacing.

The acting styles vary between the leads, but everyone feels like a good fit for the role given to them. Rankin is the eye of the storm, in many ways, and those around her struggle to keep themeselves rooted safely to the ground, for different reasons. Dexter-Jones wants to get closer to her, while both Pereira and Nef try to maintain a certain distance, the latter out of a self-protective urge to avoid being hurt once again by a partner who hasn't been on her best behaviour recently. Jared Abrahamson has a couple of memorable scenes, and I enjoyed the fact that he was never really depicted as more than just a minor annoyance, and fans of Molly Ringwald will be please to see her onscreen for a few minutes, in a role that actually makes excellent use of her in such a limited amount of screentime.

Many will watch this and be turned off by it. It's a deliberately obtuse and challenging piece of work, a horror of internal stress and damage being transformed into external dangers. Get through the first scenes, however, and start to soak up the atmosphere of it, and you will be rewarded with something both thought-provoking and satisfyingly unnerving. It's a character piece, and a look at some different relationship dynamics, but it also remembers to deliver proper horror movie moments.

8/10

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Men (2022)

Men. Men, men, men, bloody men. Some might rush to say "not all men". But it is. It is all men. We know that it's all men. Not all the time, and perhaps not all with bad intentions, but, yes, all men. It is, I hope, a situation that is improving over time, but I would suspect that many women might disagree with me there. The best we can hope for is that attitudes continue to be checked and adjusted in ways that just weren't even considered a generation or two ago. There will still be those who just can't accept change, but they can wallow in their tar-pits and wait for extinction like the dinosaurs they are.

Now let's get to this film. Men is the story of a woman (Harper, played by Jessie Buckley) trying to enjoy some vacation time in a small English village. Unfortunately, she cannot seem to escape the main problem that she is trying to forget. Men. And, just in case you didn't understand the size of the problem, writer-director Alex Garland has nearly ever male character in the film played by Rory Kinnear (assisted by either make-up or CGI trickery). What unfolds is a nightmarish journey through a landscape plagued by awful men. Even the ones who don't seem overtly awful are quite awful.

Although not entirely successful throughout, and I think the central conceit is just a bit too clumsy and obvious, there's so much to enjoy and admire in Men that I am surprised by the opinions I have seen from people who have claimed to be pretty disappointed by it. I knew what to expect, pretty much, as soon as the film began (the trailer certainly made the premise obvious), but it was still able to surprise me, from the increasing level of dread throughout to the moments of wince-inducing gore. And when I started to wonder if we were being shown a reality or a vision filtered through the fevered brain of the central character, as I wonder often with horror movies full of such startling imagery, I realised what a wonderful extra little button Garland had put on his material. Accept the horrors, empathise with the lead, and consider the implications of every awkward exchange and encounter . . . or doubt the lived experience of the woman who is suffering in the midst of various problematic men.

Buckley is superb in her role, giving her best performance so far (although I am basing this on my own exposure to only a few of her movie roles, some), and she is more than up to the task of plumbing the depths of pain that her character has gone through, and carries around with her. It would seem rude to praise Kinnear more than Buckley so I will try not to, but he certainly deserves a lot of credit for allowing his visage to be used as a universal symbol of patriarchal problems and the predatory male gaze. Paapa Essiedu has a small, but pivotal, role, and he's very good, and Gayle Rankin allows viewers an occasional sigh of relief whenever she is onscreen, being a friend to Harper, despite having to settle for being on her phone screen as opposed to physically being there to provide extra comfort and support.

I agree with some who have mentioned that it may have been even better for Garland to write this script and then hand it over to a female director, but he certainly handles everything with an effectiveness that makes up for the lack of subtlety. And maybe the time for subtlety is long gone, so why not put together a collage of potent horror imagery that gives just a hint of the many micro-aggressions and 24/7 nightmares that women go through every single day. And if you're rolling your eyes and wanting to yell "not all men" at this review then you're part of the reason WHY subtlety had to be thrown by the wayside. Because it is. It is all men. We know that it's all men. Even if a lot more are trying to change for the better. I'm qualified to say that, being a man who has worked hard on changing my own language and attitudes over the years, and there are billions of women around the world even more qualified than me to correct your wilful ignorance.

8/10

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