SYNOPSIS: Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck star in this tense, mystery thriller based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. A husband becomes the primary suspect when his wife's lovers start dying, after letting his wife have affairs in order to avoid a divorce. Who's really telling the truth?
MOVIE REVIEW:
81-year-old English director Adrian Lye known for his sexually-charged thrillers, Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal and Unfaithful returns to helm Deep Water after an absence of two decades from the big screen.
This so-called erotic psychological thriller based on a 1957 Patricia Highsmith novel stars Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as the Van Allens, Vic and Melinda. With the sultry Melinda hooking up younger men as and when she likes, their rich social circle frequently talks openly about their marriage. Maybe Melinda is stuck in a loveless marriage. Maybe Vic is unwilling to divorce her because of their young daughter (the only bright spot in the movie) or because he has to spilt his riches with her. Something is kind of off here.
Things start to turn sinister when Melinda’s lovers turned up dead one by one. Perhaps the murderer is Vic who finally broke down and snaps since he even made a dark joke about killing her lover although Vic remains a credible neighbour in the close-knit community. Or perhaps Melinda is a psychotic lover. Deep Water raises a lot of questions throughout but fails to answer any of them.
Lye treats the first half of his movie as if it’s his routine morning walk. Nothing substantial happened even after an hour. There’s no concrete evidence to show the couple is deeply in love or in an open relationship in the first place. Melinda often teases Vic, attempts a half-baked blowjob in the car and seemingly disinterested in her role as a mother and wife. Vic on the other hand prefer to stare intensely as his wife constantly flirts with other men and plays with his pet snails instead of ahem, the young, sexy Melinda.
It seems like no one cares or knows what to do with the Patricia Highsmith novel that they have to clumsily introduce a Hollywood screenwriter character (who is actually a pulp writer in the original material), Don Wilson (Tracy Letts) into the flimsy plotting before haphazardly disposing him as he begins to suspect Vic of foul play.
Deep Water falls short in every aspect which explains the long-delayed release. It fails miserably both as a twisted erotic thriller and a lesson on morality. While much madness is teased in the end, nothing conclusive happened and the movie ended on an abrupt note. It’s a shame that the only thing you remember of Deep Water is Affleck and Armas’ brief romantic fling after shooting.
Do check out David Fincher’s Gone Girl which coincidentally also starring Affleck instead. This is interestingly more of an erotic psychological thriller.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: Gifted with a voice that her parents can’t hear, seventeen-year-old Ruby (Emilia Jones), is the sole hearing member of a deaf family—a CODA, Child of Deaf Adults. Her life revolves around acting as interpreter for her parents (Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur) and working on the family’s struggling fishing boat every day before school with her father and older brother (Daniel Durant). But when Ruby joins her high school’s choir club, she discovers a gift for singing and finds herself drawn to her duet partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). Encouraged by her enthusiastic, tough-love choirmaster (Eugenio Derbez) to apply to a prestigious music school, Ruby finds herself torn between the obligations she feels to her family and the pursuit of her own dreams.
MOVIE REVIEW:
‘CODA’ is short for ‘Child Of Deaf Adults’, but there is nothing short about the humour, heart and warmth that this absolute crowd-pleaser packs. Indeed, there is good reason why this adaptation of the 2014 French film ‘La Famille Belier’ won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival last year, was picked up by Apple TV for a record-breaking US$25 million, and could very well walk away with the top prize of Best Picture at the upcoming Academy Awards.
The eponymous child is 17-year-old Ruby (Emilia Jones), who is the lone hearing member of her family comprising her dad Frank (Troy Kotsur), mom Jackie (Marlee Matlin) and older brother Leo (Daniel Durant). Not surprisingly, Ruby has spent her whole life acting as an interpreter for her family, not least as a deck hand on the family’s fishing boat. In between the daily morning fishing expeditions with her father and brother, Ruby has to juggle her high school responsibilities, which explains why she often falls asleep in class and smells like fish.
Ruby’s life takes a life-changing turn when she follows her crush in school, Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), to sign up for choir. During her first session, Ruby runs out of class, though that is less because she is unable to sing than the fact that she is shy to do so in front of others. Ruby does summon the courage to return, and as you would probably expect, wows their music teacher (Eugenio Derbez) so much so that he offer to coach her on weekends and nights in order to prepare her to audition for the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Even though she had not contemplated such a future before, Ruby starts to imagine one beyond home and outside the confines of her family as she nurtures her singing talent. Alas her dreams come into sharp contrast against the future that her parents have for her – that is, to continue serving as interpreter for the family, whether out at sea in the event of any emergency or back on land to help them sell their catch; that tension is further exacerbated given how music is simply something that the rest of her family cannot instinctively appreciate.
Here is what writer-director Sian Heder succeeds with ‘CODA’ as Ruby’s coming-of-age story: as her family’s bridge to the hearing world, Ruby’s need to find her own place in the world comes with the weight of responsibility that she carries on behalf of her family. Ruby’s choice not only triggers her parents to reflect on the implications of their dependence on her, but also affects her brother Leo who genuinely wants her to do well and has also to grapple with his own pride that he is somehow less important to the family than she is.
Such dilemmas are not new, but Heder portrays them here with utmost sensitivity and respect to the characters which inhabit her story. Besides Ruby and Leo, Frank and Jackie occupy indelible roles in the narrative, both of whom are forced over the course of the film to confront that what may be convenient for their family may not necessarily be what is best for their daughter. Yes, as familiar as they may be, the family dynamics here are textured, vibrant and thoroughly appealing.
That accomplishment is as much Heder’s completely naturalistic filmmaking as it is the amazing chemistry among the cast, who had deservedly won the Screen Actors Guild for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. We admit this is the first time we’re seeing Kotsur, Matlin and Durant, but they are an absolute joy to watch – in particular, Kotsur and Matlin have a blast leaning into their uninhibited characters, while Durant brings a poignant soulfulness as the other child in the family who is sometimes overlooked. And of course, there is British actress-singer/songwriter Jones, who is tender and tough and everything in between as Ruby, bringing a whole palette of moods to the table and blending seamlessly with the trio of deaf actors.
Like we said, there is good reason why ‘CODA’ has emerged as the frontrunner to win the top prize in the Academy Awards 2022. It is an emotional powerhouse of a movie, especially in the last act where dad and mom finally put aside their fears and insecurities to appreciate the world as Ruby is experiencing it – one of the best scenes is when the sound drops out during Ruby’s high-school concert, and we see how Frank and Jackie try to absorb the event by looking over the faces of their fellow audience members and smile and clap along when others do. Only the unredeemable cynic will be left indifferent when Ruby finally takes to her Berklee audition singing Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’; is it quite possibly one of the most moving climaxes we’ve seen this year.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Thriller
Director: Phillip Noyce
Cast: Naomi Watts, Colton Gobbo, Andrew Chown, Sierra Maltby, Michelle Johnston, Woodrow Schrieber, David Reale
Runtime: 1 hr 24 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 31 March 2022
Synopsis: While out for a run, Amy (Academy Award®-nominee Naomi Watts) learns there is an active shooter at her son’s school. She’s far from home with no fast way back, so she does whatever she can to protect her son and grapple the situation from afar. Her persistence leads to her direct contact with the shooter and police.
Movie Review:
True to its title, ‘The Desperate Hour’ unfolds almost in real time as we follow Amy (Naomi Watts), a mother grieving the loss of her husband a year ago, struggle to get to her teenage son Noah’s school, where an active shooter incident has broken out. Unfortunately for Amy, she was on a long morning run in the woods before she received the emergency broadcast from the town’s police department about the incident, so it will take no less than an hour of running and limping as well as a brief car ride before she is able to get to town.
As conceived by writer Chris Sparling, the movie is structured much like his breakout hit ‘Buried’ – so like Reynolds did in that movie, Watts pretty much holds this 81-minute thriller together from start to finish. Oh yes, those expecting a more elaborate execution based on the aforementioned premise will no doubt be disappointed, given how most of the movie has Watts fielding an array of phone calls while navigating through the remote woods on her own, without the issues of poor reception or GPS in case you’re wondering.
Yet within its minimalist set-up, veteran Australian director Phillip Noyce and Sparling pull off a relatively impressive feat of keeping the pace tight and taut. Within a deceptively leisurely 15 minutes, Noyce efficiently establishes the building blocks of the narrative – the reason why Amy has decided to take the day off; the same reason why Noah pretends to be sick so he can avoid school; her mother flying in that day, and therefore a call to the auto repair shop to ensure her parents’ car would be ready; and last but not least, two other calls from a friend organizing a moms’ night out and her daughter’s elementary school.
Without giving too much away, let’s just say that these contacts become her eyes and ears as she tries to get a better sense of the situation on the ground. Did Noah eventually go to school? Has he managed to escape or is he still trapped in the school with the shooter? Who exactly is the shooter? Watts is fantastic at conveying Amy’s desperation as a mother, and just as effective at showing how she transforms that anguish into both resolve and resourcefulness. This is effectively Watts’ one-hander, and she gives her all in a performance both raw and real.
That realism is however undermined by a credulity-straining third act, which sees Watts making some wildly irresponsible choices in order for her to eventually become some everyman hero. It is too obvious how Sparling is trying to up the dramatic urgency in the proceedings in order to deliver a more Hollywood-friendly climax, but the result of these injudicious creative turns causes the film to lose its own credibility, and ultimately opens it to criticism that it is simply milking a terrible real-life subject for cheap action thrills.
And because of its own desperate last-minute attempt at pandering to conventional movie-going sensibilities, ‘The Desperate Hour’ ends up falling short as an intimate drama cum social commentary on the horror that parents in America must feel when they hear of yet another school shooting incident. It still is an effective rollercoaster ride thanks to Watts’ intensely committed act, but one wishes that the filmmakers could either have decided to be realistic or be dramatic and not try for both at the same time; if it had known better what it wanted to be, it probably wouldn’t end up as the earnest, well-intentioned muddle it is now.
Movie Rating:
(An awkward cross between realistic social drama and dramatic thriller, this one-hander that boasts an impressively committed performance by Naomi Watts is watchable but hardly compelling)
Review by Gabriel Chong
SYNOPSIS: A Hitchcockian thriller following a young couple (Lily Collins, Jesse Plemons) who arrive at their vacation home only to find it’s being robbed.
MOVIE REVIEW:
What can you do if you are stuck at home during a pandemic?
How about gathering a group of good friends over Zoom and start pitching an idea for a movie liked what Jason Segel did.
In this touted as a Hitchcockian, film-noir inspired thriller, Segel plays a stranger who wonders around a nice vacation home drinking orange juice and urinates in the shower. When he is about leave with a Rolex and some money he found, a tech billionaire (Jesse Plemons) and his wife (Lily Collins) walks in and is immediately taken as hostages by the stranger.
Realizing he might be captured on security cameras; the stranger demands a bigger sum of money from the billionaire but his assistant can only deliver the cash the day after. Thus, the threesome is forced to spend the night together and obviously it’s not going to end well in the end.
This home invasion thriller which takes place in a single location is clearly more talky than thrilling. There are no panic rooms, hidden compartments or even accomplices who barge in halfway. For the majority of the runtime, there’s just Segel, Plemons and Collins walking around the estate and sitting around lamenting about life, corporate greed, egos and commentary about social status.
Plemons is solid as the narcissistic tech billionaire. His character is the slimy rich a-hole who attempts to talk himself out of every situation looking down on everyone and that includes his trophy wife. Segel playing against type offers a somewhat engaging performance, ditto to Collins. In other words, it’s generally well-acted except there’s little tension and character development to keep viewers invested throughout.
Truthfully, Windfall actually does turned out to be a worthy trip given the surprise turn out of events in the last act. It’s a pleasure to say despite the less-than-stellar narrative, the experience is very much out-of-the-box.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
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ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS 2022Posted on 28 Mar 2022 |
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Le-van Kiet
Cast: Lam Thanh My, Quang Tuan, Mai Cat Vi, Dieu Nhi, Le Be La
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Rating: PG13 (Horror and Some Disturbing Scenes)
Released By: Clover Films and Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 24 March 2022
Synopsis: After suffering a family tragedy, a widower named Thanh (Quang Tuan) moves his two daughters to a centuries-old ancestral home. Both daughters fall prey to sleep paralysis and night terrors. Their father seeks the help of a local psychologist, but chilling secrets and visions eventually prove that all is not what it seems in the old family house...
Movie Review:
An intriguing premise and an atmospheric setting cannot quite save the Vietnamese horror ‘The Ancestral’ from humdrum, a disappointing misfire from writer-director Le-Van Kiet following the critical and commercial success of his martial arts actioner ‘Furie’. This isn’t Le’s first horror attempt, and though we had not seen his earlier work (a la ‘House in the Alley’), we had certainly expected at least coherence and purpose to the whole exercise in jump-scares and CGI-ed demons.
A prologue filmed through a camcorder and then through CCTV shows a woman and her baby traumatized by the strange behaviour of her grandmother, who apparently suffers from sleep paralysis and sleepwalks at night. Fast-forward to present day, where we learn the young Yen (Mai Cat Vi) is going through the same, awakening from a nightmare of her mother, whom we learn had recently passed away and is the reason why her father Thanh (Quang Tuan) has decided to abandon their previous house and move them into a centuries-old ancestral home.
It doesn’t take a cynic to scoff at the logic of that decision. How much good can moving the family to a creepy old house be for two daughters still reeling from the death of their mother? In fact, it isn’t even clear over the course of the film that the house belonged to the family, or if it is just some random house in a deserted village and without giving too much away, let’s just say when it is revealed late into the second act why Thanh had chosen to move the family to the house, it is as laughable and ridiculous a turn of events as can be.
As genre convention would have it, Yen’s sleep paralysis takes a turn for the worse; even during afternoon naps, she is caught in a trance-like state, unable to move her body as if something were holding her down. On the other hand, Yen’s older sister Linh (Lam Thanh My) sees a mysterious black figure in and around the house, and begins to fear that she might have inherited the same disease from her parents. Like we said before, it is never clear if it is both or neither, and Le’s failure to make clear whether these otherworldly figures are real or just imagination is downright frustrating.
Because we never know how much we should take it for real, Le’s unceasing effort at throwing something at his audience at a loud pitch is also simply annoying. As much as he may aspire to be, Le is no James Wan, and his ambition of adapting Wan’s style of long takes, slow push-ins and foreboding soundtrack culminating in unexpected scares is embarrassing to watch. It doesn’t help that the CGI is amateurish, such that we can never take what is meant to be scary for real.
So as unusual as the idea of a Vietnamese horror may be, and as intriguing as its premise may sound, ‘The Ancestral’ is best left avoided. There is little logic to its execution, and even less purpose to the scares, so all you’re left wondering at the end of it was what Le had even intended with it in the first place. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a solid Asian horror, and as much as we wanted to like it, ‘The Ancestral’ is a thorough letdown, even more so coming from a director like Le.
Movie Rating:
(An intriguing premise and an atmospheric setting cannot disguise an overall lack of coherence and purpose to this frustrating horror outing)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Comedy/Action
Director: Tom Gormican
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, Ike Barinholtz, Alessandra Mastronardi, Jacob Scipio, Lily Sheen, with Neil Patrick Harris, Tiffany Haddish
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Rating: NC16 (Coarse Language and Drug Use)
Released By: Encore Films
Official Website:
Opening Day: 21 April 2022
Synopsis: Nicolas Cage stars as... Nick Cage in the action-comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Creatively unfulfilled and facing financial ruin, the fictionalized version of Cage must accept a $1million offer to attend the birthday of a dangerous superfan (Pedro Pascal). Things take a wildly unexpected turn when Cage is recruited by a CIA operative (Tiffany Haddish) and forced to live up to his own legend, channeling his most iconic and beloved on-screen characters in order to save himself and his loved ones. With a career built for this very moment, the seminal award-winning actor must take on the role of a lifetime: Nick Cage.
Movie Review:
All together, Nicolas Cage has spent the last 40 years in show business, so unless you belonged to the last decade where he had largely headlined direct-to-video independent films, you would probably have seen the actor in one of his iconic roles.
Notwithstanding this, it bears saying that a premise like that in ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ – in which a washed-out mega Hollywood star finds his mojo by reliving his former performances through being a CIA informant for a political kidnapping – would not be possible without an undeniable star of inimitable talent like Cage; and yet it would be presumptuous to think that such a movie would immediately be successful just with Cage’s participation, given the spotty track record of such projects with Hollywood faces playing themselves.
With absolute relief therefore, we are proud to say that Tom Gormican’s meta-action comedy is a blast through and through. It isn’t just about the numerous references to Cage’s films over the years – and that includes not only the blockbusters like ‘Con Air’, ‘The Rock’ or ‘Face/Off’ but also under-rated classics such as ‘Guarding Tess’, ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ and the more recent ‘Pig’; rather, it is about how Cage proves perfectly self-aware, willing to embrace both the accolades and the brickbats which have been levelled at him throughout his career.
Cage introduces us to the fictionalised version of himself accosting filmmaker David Gordon Green for a movie role which he says could be his “King Lear”, insisting despite the latter declining the invitation to put on a Boston accent to perform a monologue at the valet pick-up of the leafy industry haunt Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Nick (as his alter-ego here is known) doesn’t get the role; with a $600k debt he owes to the Sunset Tower hotel and his own lavish lifestyle to support, Nick has no choice but to reluctantly accept his agent’s (Neil Patrick Harris) offer to appear at a birthday party in Mallorca for a million dollar payday.
Turns out that the invite is from a Cage superfan named Javi (Pedro Pascal), who personally picks him up on a speedboat to bring Nick to his private sun-struck villa. Besides gracing his special day, Javi hopes to use the opportunity to convince Nick to star in a screenplay he has written. The surprise here is the double act between Cage and Pascal, the former’s amplified star personas combining with the latter’s starry-eyed guilelessness to exude an immediate and unflinching chemistry that brings an infectious exuberance and unexpected poignance to the proceedings.
Against their bromance, the intrusion by two CIA agents (Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz) stand little chance. Despite their warnings therefore that the latter is a very dangerous man (or to be more precise, the head of a major Spanish crime organisation who kidnapped the teenage girl we saw earlier to force a Catalan presidential candidate to drop out of the election), you’ll find yourself rooting for Nick and Javi, basking in their friendship as they bond over drinks, drives and cliff-diving. It isn’t so much that Pascal steals the show than the fact that he brings out the more affecting side of Cage, elevating the movie into a delightfully sweet buddy comedy.
To his credit, Gormican skilfully utilises these moments to complement the more self-indulgent parts of his movie, especially in the second act where Nick alternates between his various onscreen personas in a number of bravura set-pieces, including a cat-burgling attempt impeded by a paralytic nerve agent and an LSD-addled vehicular chase. That the conventional action beats of the third act doesn’t descend into just another standard-issue Cage action movie is also credit to the synergy between Cage and Pascal; and without giving too much away, let’s just say that they team up in some pleasantly unexpected ways.
As risky as such a high-flying concept was therefore, ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ is an unabashed hoot that is a must-see for everyone who has ever harboured an abiding love for Cage. Far from being a self-absorbed misfire, this meta-comedy proves a giddy exercise in self-referential humour, buoyed by a wonderfully attuned Cage who is willing to laugh at his own excesses, acknowledge the criticisms levelled at him and wear his vulnerabilities on his sleeve. That you’ll walk out loving the inimitable Cage even more is testament to the film’s success as a fascinating mix of realness, fakeness, vanity, artistry, self-commentary and pure comedy.
Movie Rating:
(Whether as Nick Cage or Nicky Cage, Nicolas Cage is simply inimitable in this delightfully self-aware tribute to one of the greatest American actors of our generation)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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AND THE BEST ACTION DESIGN GOES TO...Posted on 28 Mar 2022 |
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Director: Phontharis Chotkijsadarsopon (Mike)
Cast: Witthawat Rattanboonbaramee, Bhuripat Vejvongsatechawat, Phiravich Attachitsataporn, Atiwat Saengtien, Khunnaphat Phichetworawut, Chanatip Potongkam, Kyutae Sim, Putthipong Sriwat, Kanthaphat Kitichaivaranggoon, Atirootj Saengtien, Thitipan Raksasat
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins
Rating: PG13 (Horror & Some Sexual References)
Released By: Clover Films and Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 7 April 2022
Synopsis: Aod, a young gravedigger at Thamma Nakanimitr temple, unearths an ancient gold anklet from a tomb dated back to World War II. He decided to pocket the anklet and falls prey to a curse that turns his skin scaly, the likes of a snake. The powerful curse tormented him with great pain and also awaken the ghost of Nak Kam, the monk who was the first victim of this ancient curse and owner of the jinxed anklet. Aod and his friends, Nott, Balloon, First, Do Min Joon and Pampam set off to the northeast of Thailand and Mekong to find the legendary forest Monastery that is said to hold the solution to break the curse. With the ghost of Nak Kam pursuing the group with vengeance, the rowdy pack is also rushing against time before Aod succumb to the curse.
Movie Review:
Not to be confused with Pee Mak - the other Thai horror-comedy about a lovelorn female spirit - Pee Nak is about a curse, a Naga and some very unfortunate monks. This third chapter continues with returning cast members and an overstretched plot (or lack thereof), and by the looks of it, should likely be its last.
Aod (Khunnaphat Phichetworawut) is a young gravedigger at Thamma Nakanimitr temple, and accidentally unearths an ancient gold anklet which he keeps. He soon starts to feel unwell and as scales start to appear on his skin, it becomes clear that he’s under a curse - likely from the mythical Naga from folklore in the region. But a human apparition afflicted with the same scaling appears and comes for Aod and his friends, wanting desperately to punish those that have stolen his anklet.
So my question really is, why doesn’t the group return this to the ghost? As with many other supernatural logic, it seems like a fitting decision to either pass a murderous ghost his anklet or to return it to the spot where it was found. To be fair, Aod does try to do so in the first encounter, but is quickly grabbed away by his monk friends for no apparent reason. Instead, the group travels across the region to various spots in a bid to find out the origins of the anklet. While this may make some sense to have a more complete closure, it may not be all that practical when you have a blood-thirsty ghost physically crippling your group? Maybe I missed something?
The group later uncovers that the ghost is actually that of Nak Kam - a monk who had an unsavoury nature. And as Aod travels from temple to temple, the spirit manages to maim, injure and even kill some in the group. Not that Aod and his friends didn’t know - his intent is really quite clear, given that he repeats the same line only about a hundred times throughout the film (“You have stolen my anklet. You must die!”. They eventually find a solution, but I have to say, it feels deeply unsatisfying.
Part of Pee Nak 3’s problem isn’t so much that it’s a problem but a complacency. During its height, Thai movie-making found its groove in both horror and comedy genres, and when someone decided to merge both, it birthed a new hit formula. But like an inexperienced surfer, riding an expired wave is only going to get you crashing into the waters, and Pee Nak 3 does this in unspectacular fashion.
Director Phontharis Chotkijsadarsopon (Mike) is really throwing small eventful scenes together rather than trying to have a cohesive journey in this hackneyed plot. One moment the group can be discovering the dead body of a manager, the next they are taking off to a temple as if nothing has happened. In another scene, a monk reveals that a statue the group has been carrying has been protecting them because of the Naga. Afterwards, the statue is never seen again. There are too many disconnects here, with revelations that have no payoff or impact later scenes. Tha main thrust seems to be about extending the group’s journey so that there’s more gags to fill the show.
These are mostly centred around the gay duo of Balloon (Witthawat Rattanboonbaramee) and First (Bhuripat Vejvongsatechawat), who has provided the comic relief (appropriately timed or not) since the first film. The two hams things up with the most stereotypical references that not only seem contrived, but possibly offensive by today’s measures. There’s only so much lustful antics and cartoon sound effects one can take.
The film wastes the fictional legend it’s created - a pity because there’s so much room there for rich scenes and true horror to emerge. While the titles have seen domestic commercial success previously, it’s only a matter of time before the locals catch on.
Movie Rating:
(Uninspired and hammy, go for this only if you like cheese and slapstick and not much else)
Review by Morgan Awyong
Genre: Drama
Director: Will Sharpe
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Andrea Riseborough, Toby Jones, Sharon Rooney, Aimee Lou Wood, Hayley Squires, Stacy Martin, Phoebe Nicholls
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 7 April 2022
Synopsis: The extraordinary true story of eccentric British artist Louis Wain (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose playful, sometimes even psychedelic pictures helped to transform the public's perception of cats forever. Moving from the late 1800s through to the 1930s, we follow the incredible adventures of this inspiring, unsung hero, as he seeks to unlock the "electrical" mysteries of the world and, in so doing, to better understand his own life and the profound love he shared with his wife Emily Richardson (Claire Foy).
Movie Review:
We must confess that we haven’t heard of the eccentric British illustrator Louis Wain before this movie, so pardon us if we didn’t start off being enamored with the subject material in the first place. Yet those who were similarly ignorant of the titular polymath may likewise be wondering why director and co-writer Will Sharpe had deemed it interesting to recount the life of Louis Wain from cradle to grave, notwithstanding how his drawings had endeared the independent-minded animal with English households and made them consider the feline as a domestic pet.
Quite certainly, this two-hour biopic fails to make good on its narrator’s description of Louis (Benedict Cumberbatch) as a ‘failed art teacher, failed musician, aspiring inventor, enthusiastic poly-hobbyist and of course part-time illustrator’. What we do learn rather emphatically is how Louis is saddled as a young adult with the responsibility of being the primary breadwinner for his family following the death of his father; as the only male and eldest of the Wains, Louis has to support his mother and five sisters by working for the Illustrated London News as an illustrator.
These women, especially the most outspoken sister Caroline (Andrea Riseborough), will come to define his life for better and for worse. Their disapproval of his courtship of the household governess Emily Richardson (Claire Foy) undoubtedly counts towards the latter, not only because it was societally scandalous for a ‘gentleman’ to be in a relationship with someone from the servile class, but also because of their fear of losing the constant support he gives that they crave. Refusing to submit to family objections, Louis and Emily move to an adorable thatch cottage in Hampstead, where they would live out an unfortunately brief marriage.
By the end of the first hour, Louis will find himself all alone again, except for a black and white kitten he and Emily had found in their garden before her passing whom they would christen Peter. It is this discovery that would spark his imagination into the world of cats and come to define his legacy, beginning with a two-page Christmas spread in the paper and then to greeting cards, newspaper comics and children’s books. Louis’ fame in this regard culminates in his crowning as chairman of the National Cat Society, and it is fascinatingly surreal to watch how his creations go from viral to mainstream.
Alas, as his mental state takes a turn for the worse, so does the coherence of the movie itself. Oscillating between melancholy and whimsy, the second half charts his descent into disillusionment and possible schizophrenia. It is not easy trying to cram 25 years worth of a person’s life into an hour, and the result is predictably episodic and unimpressive. We feel some sympathy for his misfortune of not copyrighting his work, such that even though widely reproduced, he gains nothing from them. We feel less for one of his sisters Marie (Hayley Squires), who suffers from mental illness and has to be sent to an asylum, where she eventually passes from influenza; ditto for the death of his mother from influenza too, shortly after he arrives in New York hoping to forge a new phase of his career.
It isn’t only that Sharpe and his fellow screenwriter Simon Stephenson fail to find a compelling way to portray Louis’ decline; it is also the fact that they don’t quite know how to balance the tone of the film, whether to let it go soggy with sadness or to lift it with trips of visual gimmickery. A particular scene that shows his hallucination of drowning triggered by a broken sink encapsulates the often jarring switch between the two, and by the time it ends with him sobbing in his skivvies for his dead mother, we are left unsure whether to feel pity for him.
That the movie does not otherwise fall into tedium is credit to Cumberbatch, who proves yet again why he is the go-to guy for playing tortured geniuses onscreen. It is a twitchy, high-strung performance, but one suffused with pathos and grace. Cumberbatch and Foy are also excellent together, and it is evident how the film is much less once their scenes of courtship and marriage are over. The other supporting actors such as Riseborough, Toby Jones (as Louis’ exasperated but indulgent editor) and Adeel Akhtar (as an acquaintance Louis makes when he is young, and who will have another consequential run-in with Louis very much later on in life) are just as fine, and add to the quality of the period drama.
Yet the production values cannot quite compensate for the thinness of the material, not so much that Louis did not have an interesting life, but rather Sharpe’s treatment of it, especially his mental health. There is also an attempt to explore his obsession with electricity, but that gets even shorter shrift and is therefore even less satisfying. So even though the first hour is both eccentric and enjoyable, and Cumberbatch is brilliant as always, ‘The Electrical Life of Louis Wain’ is hardly electrifying, and only hums along pleasingly for half of its journey before sputtering. It isn’t quite a misfire, but this uneven biography is ultimately as unfocused as its subject was.
Movie Rating:
(Like its subject, this biography starts off strong and focused, before going off in too many directions at once)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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