Red Sparrow - Largely satisfactory

When Red Sparrow was doing its rounds in the reviews last year, the opinion was largely universal.  All were agreed it was good that Jennifer Lawrence was getting her acting chops into something a little more edgy (though we shouldn't forget she was in Winter's Bone before she became a wannabee for a generation of teenage girls in the Hunger Games saga - hardly a Disney movie), but no one was quite sure if the film itself was actually any good.  Time to find out for myself. 

Edgy is right.  Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova, Russian ballerina who's leg is broken in an 'accident', takes bloody revenge on her partner and is then recruited into the Russian secret service after the state tells her that the care her ill elderly mother relies on will be taken away if she refuses.  So she goes along, initially being raped by a man who is then strangled to death in front of her, then being further coerced into training as a 'Sparrow' - an expert in seduction, working out what it is that people want and using that to be the best spy there is.  Cue multiple scenes of Lawrence being beaten up, beating people up, sexualised violence, torture, the lot.  How will she escape this world?  Will she escape this world?  Edgy indeed.

I'm always happy to see an actor who could easily settle down into the Hollywood mainstream take on different roles.  Viggo Mortensen is the go-to case-in-point here.  Lawrence has a long way to go before she matches his shunning of the mainstream, and Red Sparrow is hardly an indie movie, but its difficult material mean its a film the audience who made her famous are unlikely to seek out.

As usual with a film like this, plenty of people are given ample opportunity to engage in - I presume - awful Russian accents.  Alongside Lawrence herself, Charlotte Rampling, Ciaran Hinds and Matthias Schoenaerts all get to ham it up as various arms of the Russian secret services, pledging allegiance to the state and the president, doing it for the motherland etc.  Do they even try to market these finds in CIS countries?  Probably not.

Perhaps the most surprisingly thing about Red Sparrow is that there's a lot of politics to dissect if you're willing to sit and think about it for a bit.  It's about the way that women are still treated, and are expected to allow themselves to be treated in the modern era.   Even in a post-me-too world, Dominika and her sexuality are commodities that are expected to be of use to the state (i.e. older men).  The plot flirts nicely with the idea of her being 'rescued' by the handsome American spy, with the central turn being about what she can do to beat a system she has being coerces into - go to the Americans, the nice American spy, the Russians, or something else entirely?  Perhaps it's something hinting at #MetToo, something that suggests she is far from turning into the next generation of the brainwashed automaton of the state played by Charlotte Rampling - a new generation with new ideas.  I found the result largely satisfactory, even though the film descends into spy cliche for portions at the start of its final act.

"Largely satisfactory".  Yep - that.

Hereditary - I need to stop comparing all horror to The Witch...

Everyone went mental for Hereditary last year.  Given the absolute and unchanging aversion that my girlfriend has to horror films, not only was I unable to get to the cinema to watch it, I had to wait until she was working late and safety out of the house for several hours before the DVD even got close to the player.  Scares she does not like.  Probably best she never watches this then.

Toni Collette plays Annie, mother of two and daughter to a controlling, steely-gazed matriarch who's funeral opens the film.  Her presence looms over the family, seemingly able to influence daughter Charlie from the beyond.  When further tragedy strikes the family, Annie looks to one of her mother's friends to make contact beyond the grave.  Psychosis, visions, time and space then begin to warp around Annie as she eventually realises the true motivations her own mother had towards Charlie.

It's a film that understands how to do horror, and its place in the genre.  The most obvious comparison is Don't Look Now, but its themes of loss and devil worship also lead to Rosemary's Baby.  There are numerous well-executed unnerving asides, visual illusions and tone-setting changes of lighting / camera movements - Hereditary is a very well-made film, a lot of attention has been paid to the smallest of details.  Milly Shapiro is well-cast as Charlie, her quizzical and slightly awkward appearance defy us to decide if she's about the be the victim or instigator of horrors to come

The opening shot zooms into a dolls house and enters the bedroom in which the film begins.  The implication is that this is somehow unreal, a story within a story or that the characters herein are playthings of puppeteers unknown.  This ties into the eventual themes of demonic influence, action from beyond the grave and loss of control.

I really don't want to do this, but I have to admit that I felt let down by the final few scenes.  Everything kind of gets spelled out nicely, and the camera lingers slightly too long and with too much lighting & focus on the demonic cult that has led Annie down the path of madness.  The mystery of the first two acts is unravelled just a little too much.  I don't want to keep going on about it, but Robert Eggers' The Witch has completely reset my opinion of how much a horror film can and should reveal at its close.  If you can tease just enough to maintain the mystery beyond the closing credits, and allow multiple plausible explanations, then you've aced it.  The fact that the final shine is taken off Hereditary simply because it isn't as strong at its close as The Witch shouldn't detract, but after having expected so much it would be a lie of omission to fail to state it.

Hereditary is an extremely good horror / thriller that will scare the pants of anyone unfamiliar with the genre.  The end of the first act is particularly chilling, and the constant return to death and dread throughout are emphasised by occasional and effective visual jump scares.  It definitely kept me on edge throughout - not bad for this veteran of the genre.  I think the real take-home of this review is that I need to stop comparing every scary movie that comes out from here to the end of time to The Witch - Hereditary is brutal, fascinating, gripping, unflinching and horrifying.  It's great.