Mubi Monday: Harvest (2024)

While this is titled Harvest, it could have just as easily been titled Ye Reap What Ye Sow. And I think that may tell you all you need to know about this dark drama.

Caleb Landry Jones plays Walter Thirsk, a member of a small community living under the rule of Master Kent (Harry Melling). The members of the community tend to generally keep themselves in the good graces of Master Kent, outsiders and transgressors are dealt with swiftly, and fairly, and there's a sense of finely-balanced harmony. Change is on the horizon though, which will come in the shape of Master Jordan (Frank Dillane).

Based on a book by Jim Crace, and I suspect it may work far better in book form than on the screen, this has been turned into a screenplay by Joslyn Barnes and director Athina Rachel Tsangari. Details are kept vague (there doesn't seem to be too many obvious markers for the time and location), but plenty of time is given to various interactions that show the changing state of the community, especially when it becomes clear that the place will not be a safe haven for everyone for much longer. It's interesting and thought-provoking enough, but ultimately undone by an excessive 133-minute runtime. I understand that this is a movie wanting people to hear the breathing of characters, to feel the mud and the sweat, to etsablish that symbiotic relationship between the workers and the land, but that can be done in a more bearable runtime.

Jones does well in the main role, and also does well with a Scottish accent. He's very ably supported by Melling, Dillane, and the likes of Rosy McEwen, Thalissa Teizeira, and Arinzé Kene (the latter two involved in the most memorable scene in the film). The cast are all very much up to the task assigned to them. It's just a shame that the task isn't better. Nobody feels pushed too far, and there are darker elements far too often hinted at without being overtly confirmed.

Maybe the fault doesn't lie with the film itself though. Maybe it's my own displeasure with the quickening regression and growing wealth disparity I am seeing every day. Harvest is a reminder that the attitudes we can observe now (the misjudged belief that someone having money automatically makes them better, the ways in which people fail to believe in their own power as they do their utmost to serve others for the sake of small breadcrumbs shaken off fine tablecloths) are attitudes that have been ingrained in large sections of the population because of historical injustices and unfair abuses of power.

I wanted to like Harvest, but I was probably hoping for something that didn't so closely parallel the here and now. That's on me. The film being overlong and not daring enough, however, is on Tsangari. It's a step back from her last film, the very good Chevalier, but she's still very much someone worth taking a chance on whenever she puts something out there.

6/10

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Prime Time: Nickel Boys (2024)

Based on the acclaimed novel by Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys is one of the films that would have easily passed me by completely if it hadn't been put in competition for the Best Picture in the 2025 Oscars. I had no idea what it was about, but a quick browse to check the reactions to it saw a lot of discussion about the shooting style making it a more emotional and impactful experience. I would have to respectfully disagree with a lot of those people.

Ethan Cole Sharp plays Elwood, a young black boy with a bright future ahead of him. That all changes when he is hitch-hiking one day and ends up in a stolen car. Although Elwood didn't know the driver, nor did he know that the car was stolen, he is convicted of a crime and sent to the Nickel Academy, an infamous reform school. With clear segregation in the school, and clear preferential treatment for the white students who live there, Elwood soon finds out that he'll be stuck there for a while. The school makes money by using the black students for labour. Elwood befriends Turner (Brandon Wilson), and the two try to keep their spirits up as they plan the time when they hope to one day be free, which may be a lot sooner for Elwood if his grandmother (Hattie, played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) can scrape together the money for the right lawyer.

Directed by RaMell Ross, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Joslyn Barnes, Nickel Boys is a superb tale, and one that is very much worthy of a film that should stir up strong feelings and remind people of how stacked the US system is, and remains, against black people. This film does that, it cannot really fail to affect all but the stoniest of viewers, but it is rendered slightly less effective than it could have been with the choice to shoot things mainly from the POV of the main characters. Maybe it's just my own inflexibility, but that style in modern movies has been used too often for content that usually resembles videogame action, and having it here does the opposite of drawing you close to the characters, in my experience. I felt as if there was a barrier there, something always stopping me from feeling everything I wanted to be feeling. It was a distraction, and it didn't even feel consistent enough to be worth the technical effort.

I will say that Sharp, Wilson, and Ellis-Taylor do good work, but even the performances are difficult to fully judge through that mesh created by the shooting style. Hamish Linklater is effective as the sadistic man overseeing the running of the reformatory, and Jimmie Fails makes a strong impression as Mr. Hill, the schoolteacher who first sees how bright Elwood is, and tries to help him on the way to a better future, but too many other people are only half-glimpsed or shown bumping into the leads like some runaway balloons. That keeps the focus on Elwood and Turner, so it isn't a terrible decision, but I cannot help thinking, once again, that some different choices could have given us a richer, and even more powerful, experience.

I want to read the book this was based on, and (by sheer coincidence) I am currently enjoying something similar, albeit with a supernatural twist, called "The Reformatory", written by Tananarive Due, but I don't want to revisit this film. And while I would still tentatively recommend it to others, I know that they may have to keep working hard to look beyond the distracting shooting style in order to stay focused on the most important ups and downs of the main storyline.

6/10

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