Bohemian Rhapsody
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
After several false stars and a midstream director change, the long-awaited Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic lands as a celebration of one legendary band and one bravura performance.
Rami Malek is a certified powerhouse as Mercury, the former Farrokh Buisara, the uniquely gifted performer and iconic presence who became of rock’s most enduring frontmen.
Mercury’s extravagant persona lent itself to caricature, but Malek has none of it. His is a true characterization, eerily mirroring the singer’s appearance, elegance, movements and, with help from both original Queen music and Mercury soundalike Marc Martel, his incredible voice.
Malek’s performance stands out all the more from the void left by Queen’s surviving band members. As executive producers, they’ve whitewashed themselves into more reaction shots and less actual human beings.
It’s one of several ways the film plays it safe and settles for a crowd-pleasing greatest hits package. Directors Bryan Singer and an uncredited Dexter Fletcher work wonders with the performance pieces (the thrilling recreation of Live Aid is worth paying for IMAX), but soften the sharp edges of rock hedonism enough for a PG-13 rating. And rock and roll ain’t PG-13.
The biggest missed chance comes in the relationship between Mercury and his muse for the song “Love of My Life,” Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton). From their first scenes together, Malek and Boynton fuel the emotional core of the film, creating an absence felt whenever screenwriter Anthony McCarten (Darkest Hours) broadens the focus, which is often.
Factual liberties are taken, timelines are sometimes carelessly misrepresented (“We Will Rock You” was not written in the 80s), and there’s a totally needless gag from Mike Myers, but whenever Bohemian Rhapsody is most unsteady, Queen’s music is there for a bailout.
It’s still great. And so is Malek.
Suspiria
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Seventies horror has had a damn good month.
Just weeks after David Gordon Green gave 1978’s Halloween the sequel it deserved, director Luca Guadagnino re-imagines 1977’s giallo classic Suspiria as a gorgeous rumination on the horror of being haunted by echoes of your past.
Wait, wasn’t the original about witches?
It still is, more than ever. Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich (True Story, A Bigger Splash, the upcoming Pet Sematary remake) remove the guesswork about the dance academy coven in favor of a narrative much more layered, meaningful and bloody.
The building blocks remain the same. It is 1977 in “a divided Berlin,” when American Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson, nicely moving the character from naivete to complexity) arrives for an audition with a world-renowned dance company run by Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton, mesmerizing). Susie impresses immediately, and is soon given the lead in the company’s next production.
This “cover version” (The Tilda’s phrase, and valid) of Argento’s original lifts the veil on the academy elders early, via the diaries of Patricia (Chloe Moretz), a dancer who has fled the troupe in fear. While whispers paint Patricia as a radical member of the anti-fascist Red Army Faction, she tells psychotherapist Dr. Josef Kiemperer (also The Tilda, under impressive makeup) wild tales of witches and their shocking plans.
Guadagnino continues to be a master film craftsman. Much as he draped Call Me by Your Name in waves of dreamy romance, here he establishes a consistent mood of nightmarish goth. Macabre visions dart in and out like a video that will kill you in 7 days while sudden, extreme zooms, precise sound design and a vivid score from Thom Yorke help cement the homage to another era.
But even when this new Suspiria is tipping its hat, Guadagnino leaves no doubt he is making his own confident statement. The color scheme is intentionally muted, and you’ll find no men in this dance troupe, serving immediate notice that superficialities are not the endgame here.
Guadagnino’s stated goal of “de-victimizing” women in this film shows early and often. They move in strong solidarity both onstage and off, dancing with a hypnotic power capable of deadly results. In fact, most of the male characters here are mere playthings under the spell of powerful women, which takes a deliciously ironic swipe at witch lore as it creates a compelling bookend to what’s going on away from the dance academy.
Dr. Kiemperer, still searching for his wife missing since the end of WWII, becomes a personal illustration of Germany’s struggle with its Nazi legacy. When paired with Patricia’s rumored involvement in the “German Autumn” uprising of ’77, we get two important pillars of an epilogue that, admittedly, some may find a head-scratching overreach.
But after the finale that precedes that epilogue, the bigger problem may be breath-catching. A glorious celebration of the grotesque, it explodes into a cathartic mix of Ken Russell’s The Devils and GOT‘s Red Wedding that more than affirms the film’s intense, obsessive build. Guadagnino has thrown so much at us, he knows we deserve a payoff and damn, he delivers one.
It cements a vision of Suspiria that’s as ambitious and it is uncompromising, one that explores different definitions of horror while ultimately delivering more outright shocks and shivers than Argento ever attempted. Who knew a silly witch story could support so much mind-messery?
His name is Luca.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
Let’s say your birthday falls in December and as a lovely gesture your family took you to The Nutcracker Suite every year to celebrate, and every year you remembered again that you had no idea what the heck the ballet was about. Suppose, then, that Disney decided to make it into a movie and you thought that maybe now, with some narrative, you could figure this stuff out.
Well, you would be disappointed. But if you went to see the ballet and thought, well, there is too much dancing here, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms might be for you.
Mackenzie Foy is Clara, a young lady who dreads enduring the first Christmas without her mother. She doesn’t even want to go to the big party thrown by her godfather, Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman in a really bad wig). But her dad (Matthew Macfadyen) drags her, along with her brother and sister.
After that, things begin to feel familiar, although they rarely feel like The Nutcracker. The film becomes an inverted exploration of childhood and adolescence. Like Alice in Wonderland meets The Wizard of Oz meets Hunger Games.
Helen Mirren plays lord of this disused amusement park overrun by rats and clowns, though, and that is seriously cool. Meanwhile, Keira Knightly shamelessly steals scenes as Sugarplum. Both are fun in a film that desperately needs a bit more of it.
Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger) and Lasse Hallstrom co-direct. That checks out. Johnston brings a rather workmanlike attitude for spectacle, while Hallstrom—whose credits range from the Oscar-winning Cider House Rules to the unwatchable A Dog’s Purpose—brings an eye for manicured beauty and an utter lack of whimsy.
Do you remember watching the ballet as a child? The spooky, eye-patched uncle? The 7-headed rat? It is seriously creepy, and at the same time, there is wonder in every dance whether you understand the storyline or you don’t.
There are lovely moments peppered through this visually elegant picture, but there is no passion, no danger and no excitement.
And weirdly enough, very little Tchaikovsky almost no dancing.
Beautiful Boy
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Those of a certain age hear the title Beautiful Boy and most likely think of the John Lennon song, a sweetly poignant ode from father to son. It’s used to touching effect in the film that shares that title, an utterly heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful adaption of separate memoirs by David and Nicolas Sheff.
David was the proud father, a successful writer who dreamed of great things for his bright, ambitious son. Instead, Nic became an alcoholic and drug addict who offered his family countless promises of recovery that always fell empty.
Two masterful performances drive this film to its emotional heights, keeping it steady the few times it teeters on slopes of undue manipulation.
Steve Carell makes David an instantly relatable mix of unconditional love and crestfallen confusion. As Nic’s addiction batters David’s homelife with his wife (Maura Tierney) and two young children, flashbacks to sweet memories with a younger Nic outline the bond between father and son that only grew after David’s split with Nic’s mother (Amy Ryan – also stellar). Carell makes it feel real with a thoughtful, often understated turn full of quiet detail.
And people, if last year didn’t hip you to the immense talent of Timothee Chalamet, he’s back to seal the deal with a performance certain to be hailed come Oscar time.
Just when you’re comfortable with the authenticity of Nic’s slide into addiction, Chalamet digs deeper to find the shattering center of a soul at war with dependence and desperation. Though his baby-faced smile stays miles away from meth addict ugliness, Chalamet finds a raw humanity that makes Nic a walking wound, and makes us feel part of the frayed parental bonds. His scenes with Carrell – where Nic tries taking advantage of his father’s love only to turn on him moments later – find two actors in complete sync, revealing a crushing humanity that hits you hard. Bring tissues.
There are two important stories here, and they only falter when it feels some intimacy from each has been shortchanged to make room for the other. Director Felix Van Groeningen (The Broken Circle Breakdown), collaborating on the screenplay with Luke Davies (Lion), merges the dual memoirs for a series of episodes that resonate best when given room to breath, free of any heavy-handed reminders about how quickly children grow up.
Beautiful Boy illustrates a vital, shattering cycle of addiction, rehab and relapse, often beautifully. Through first-hand insight and two towering performances, it finds a thread of hope in the ashes of a family’s nightmare.
