Mubi Monday: An Angel At My Table (1990)

It is time for me to change my opinion on Jane Campion. Having always known of her as a celebrated director (mainly due to this film and The Piano), I couldn’t see what everyone else saw. Sadly, I was basing my opinion on the one film I had seen from her, In The Cut. Although many can argue otherwise, In The Cut is a poor film. The Power Of The Dog, on the other hand, is quite superb. As is this film. And, yes, I can already hear many film fans rolling their eyes at me and saying “duh”.

Based on the autobiographies of Janet Frame, a talented writer from New Zealand who was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age, An Angel At My Table is a dramatic retelling and celebration of a quite extraordinary life. Frame is played by three different actresses showing her at different ages - Alexia Keogh, Karen Fergusson, and Kerry Fox - and one of the best things about the film is a sense of consistency throughout. All three actresses feel as if they are showing us moments in the life of the same person. That may sound easy, obvious even, but the narrative flows so well in between major life events that I didn’t always notice when the central performer had changed. 

With such apparently rich source material to work from (and it is material I have now added to my reading list), writer Laura Jones allows viewers to watch someone unique go through a life that often comes perilously close to sniffing out their talent. Whether she is being blissfully ignorant of just how much danger she is in or whether she is shown to have learned enough about her own life to start righting some major wrongs, Frame is a fascinating character who wins people over without ever changing her slightly peculiar ways. Indeed, it’s the fact that she arguably cannot change a lot of what makes her what she is that adds to the fascination about her.

Campion directs with a delicate touch, taking great care to show pain and troubles defining a life without turning the whole thing into a bleak wallow in complete misery. Frame may often deserve better treatment from those around her, but her optimism and unique view on the world allows everything to be framed (no pun intended) in a different, more heartening, way than viewers might expect.

Although everyone is very good here, whether they are playing Frame or one of the many people she encounters on her road to becoming an acclaimed writer, the shining star is Fox, delivering the kind of performance that would stand out from anyone’s filmography like a grand monolith. Everyone gets to deliver some pitch-perfect work, with Campion and Jones maintaining a wonderful balance of tone throughout, but Fox benefits from having the most screentime, and arguably going through the biggest changes.

I know that I am once again way behind the curve on this, telling people something that they already know, but An Angel At My Table is a beautiful (or maybe ugly beautiful is the best descriptor, considering the visual style) testament to a talented woman who absolutely warrants the admiration shown to her. 

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Little Joe (2019)

Emily Beecham plays Alice Woodard, a young woman working for a corporation that specialises in developing new species of plants. One of those plants, referred to as "Little Joe" in a reference to her own son (Kit Connor), is designed to respond to care and attention, much like a pet or well-behaved (and very stationary) child. Alice takes one home, although that's very much not allowed, and soon starts to worry about what the plant might be doing in order to ensure its continued survival. There are also co-workers acting strange, by either getting too emotional (in the case of Bella, played by Kerry Fox) or not seeming very emotional at all (in the case of Chris, played by Ben Whishaw).

The first film I have watched that was directed by Jessica Hausner, who also co-wrote the script with her regular collaborator Géraldine Bajard, this certainly won't be the last time I explore her filmography. Hausner and Bajard have taken an interesting premise, a quirky way to rework some material very reminiscent of the paranoid '50s sci-fi classics, and given themselves a huge boost by utilising a great cast in the main roles. It also helps that they have reframed the ideas in a very relevant, almost cutting-edge, environment. This is a film about plants, about emotions, about personality, and about the scientific ways in which all of those things can be manipulated.

Beecham, who I last saw in the excellent Daphne, is an excellent lynchpin for everything that occurs. She's very composed, but retains an ability to observe and empathise that some of the other main characters seem to lack. As her character reacts, or doesn't react, to various changes, it allows the viewer to consider just how things have the potential to be viewed in different ways as the situation develops. Whishaw is in his safety zone, very quiet and slightly uncomfortable when interacting with anyone else, but he's perfect in his role, and works very well alongside Beecham. Connor is a very good young actor, David Wilmot is very good in the role of Karl (basically . . . a team leader/boss), and Fox gives yet another of her many great performances as the alarmed and potentially paranoid Bella.

The beauty of Little Joe lies in, well, the beauty of Little Joe . . . and co. It's a visually gorgeous film, making use of sterile environments that contain some vivid splashes of colour, and both the shot composition and the ways in which the actors are placed/set to move throughout really provide a treat for the eyes, all while the intriguing ideas being sprinkled throughout the runtime provide a treat for those who enjoy intelligent sci-fi.

I can easily see many people hating this. Unlike the creation at the centre of everything, it's not an easy creation to love. And yet love it I did/do. Almost every scene has something to either draw your eye or get you thinking, and many scenes have both. And there's at least one moment that would easily rank for me as one of the best of the year. Hausner has assembled a hell of a collective to get this just right, and that ends up showcasing the fact that Little Joe sure can sing!

8/10

Shudder Saturday: Mayhem (2017)

The second film in a short space of time to focus on a bout of extreme violence in an office environment (the other being The Belko Experiment), Mayhem may have suffered thanks to the timing of its release. Maybe. It also may have suffered due to the fact that not many people found it all that enjoyable. Once again, I find myself in the minority.

Steven Yeun is Derek Cho an ambitious white collar worker in your standard dog-eat-dog corporate environment. His day starts off badly (he can't find his favourite coffee cup), becomes slightly worse with a meeting that he takes in his stride as someone (Melanie, played by Samara Weaving) desperately tries to save their home from foreclosure, and then he is thrown under a bus by a colleague, which leads to him being sacked and removed from the building. Well, due to be removed from the building. That has to be delayed when the entire building is placed under quarantine, due to the presence of a virus that causes people to act unashamedly on their baser urges. This gives Derek the time, and necessary attitude, to try and make his way up to the boardroom and win back his job.

Written by Matias Caruso and directed by Joe Lynch, Mayhem is a hugely entertaining mix of workplace tensions and cathartic violence. The effect of the virus may not be quite what you expect, especially when compared to the over the top opening sequence that explains how it changes people, but all of the decisions made work in favour of a better story, and lead characters that are easier to root for than mindless psychopaths. Despite the film being set in a densely-populated office building, the plot only makes use of a core group of characters, and most of the people who end up the most bruised and bloodied (and murder death killed) are the ones that we strongly dislike from their earliest appearances onscreen. There's a lot of madness shown going on in the background, however, and plentiful doses of pain and bloodshed.

Yeun is great in the lead role, helped by the script that allows him to also narrate exposition and notes of his own failings, and Weaving gives another very likable turn, initially opposed to Yeun and quickly realising that it is best for them to work together. Caroline Chikezie is the one who ruins Yeun's life, Steven Brand is the big boss man, Dallas Roberts is the man sent in to meet people when it is time for their tenure with the company to end,  and Kerry Fox is a senior board member. All of them are amusingly easy to loathe, each one for a slightly different reason, although it all amounts to self-preservation in a corporate environment.

I really enjoyed this. It was a lot funnier than I expected it to be, Yeun and Weaving are a big plus in their main roles, and it strikes just the right balance between satire and visceral thrills. Some may dislike it because it doesn't have enough of the titular noun, some may dislike it in (unfair) comparison to The Belko Experiment, and some may just dislike it because, well, individual taste is subjective, of course. I hope a few others check it out, and maybe one or two of them will agree with my minority opinion.

8/10

You can buy Mayhem here.
Americans can buy the movie here.