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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 January 2023

I’ve had three months to stew over Tár given the lengthy lag between its local premiere at the Brisbane Film Festival and now its broader, unusually late release across Australia.  That’s a good thing because it’s the kind of movie where the more you think about, the more you appreciate it.  It’s been 16 years since Oscar-nominated director Todd Field made a movie (In the Bedroom, Little Children) and the wait has been worth it.  This is a riveting character study that will take a long time to unwrap depending on which piece of tight sticky-tape you attack first.

The movie is centred on a fictious, EGOT-winning composer-conductor named Lydia Tár (Blanchett).  From the way she is adored and respected by audiences in the early scenes, you get a clear sense she’s the Tiger Woods of music composition.  There’s very little left to achieve professionally but her latest project is to conduct a live, 70-minute performance of Gustav Mahler’s 5^th Symphony – the only one of the famed composer’s symphonies she has not yet tackled.

One theme Tár delves into is the connection, and sometimes disconnection, between the way celebrities are perceived professionally as opposed to privately.  There are folks behind the scenes who don’t like Lydia Tár because of her arrogant, selfish nature and her disrespect of hard-working staff.  At what point does that start to tarnish her image and legacy?  Can she get away with more given her talent?  It’s akin to passionate fans turning a blind eye to a gifted footballer’s “off-field discretions” purely because he is so important to a team’s performance.

Another question to ponder is whether Lydia Tár is the villain of this story?  It’s hard to appease everyone in life and while yes, she is harsh when speaking with her orchestra and support staff, is “tough love” something that must be dished out to be the world’s best?  Where’s the line between merely having high standards, and being downright abusive?  When you’re on top of your profession and everyone wants a piece of your time, is making enemies inevitable?  Several critics/viewers have made comparisons with the 2014 Oscar-winning drama Whiplash which explores the same subject but from the perspective of the student as opposed to the teacher. 

Australian Cate Blanchett has seven Academy Award nominations to her name (she won for The Aviator and Blue Jasmine) and she’s about to be anointed again for her unforgettable performance as Lydia Tár.  Just as she did in Blue Jasmine, Blanchett has created a multi-faceted protagonist who could be judged in any number of ways.  A focus will be towards the effect she has on others, but I’m also still pondering how self-aware she is of her own strengths and weaknesses.  Todd Field has been cryptic in interviews and wants audiences to form their own answers to the questions posed.

With one of the best final scenes you could ever imagine, Tár is a stellar piece of cinema.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 02 January 2023

Inspiration can come from the strangest of places.  Twelve years ago, Dean Fleischer Camp and Jenny Slate, who were dating at the time, were packed into a small hotel room with several others while attending a friend’s wedding.  Slate made a joke in a “tiny voice” to reflect the cramped, claustrophobic space and that became the inspiration for a cute, talking, one-inch-tall shell named Marcel.

Camp shot a 3-minute stop-motion video a few days later which was to be used for a friend’s stand-up comedy show in October 2010.  He never intended to upload it to YouTube.  Camp only did so at the request of a patron who went to the comedy gig and wanted to share it with her sick grandmother.  The rest is history.  The original video has now been viewed more than 33 million times and it kick started the idea of making a full-length feature film.

A major part of the charm of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is its simplicity.  This isn’t like the colourful, high-energy animated features we see from Disney and Pixar which have heaps of supporting characters and subplots.  Made in the style of a mockumentary, it’s just about a lonely, one-eyed shell who shows us his unorthodox lifestyle and talks about the journey to locate his missing family.  To the film’s benefit, this narrow approach creates a more intimate, personal vibe.

The mockumentary format also provides an interesting point of difference.  As director, Camp fires a number of questions at Marcel (voiced by Slate) who, at times, is reluctant to open up.  It falls upon Marcel’s grandmother (beautifully voiced by Isabella Rossellini) to give him a few nudges.  The blend of fiction and reality is made blurrier by the inclusion of real-life 60 Minutes reporter Lesley Stahl who does a report on Marcel, and also the way in which the character in the movie first becomes famous through the uploading of an innocuous YouTube video.

It’s not often you can say that a family film offers a similar level of material/jokes to appease kids and adults in equal measure.  Judging from the reactions at my preview screenings, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On fits that descriptor.  Showered with praise by critics’ groups in the award season to date, it’s sweet, funny, and easy-to-like.  The emotional climax hits all the right notes.  Give it a chance.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 05 January 2023

Actor Frances O’Connor (Mansfield Park) was a 15-year-old high school student from Western Australian when she first read Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights.  It became one of her favourite books and it spurred a greater interest in 19^th century England and the lives of the three sisters, Charlotte, Anne and Emily, who would all become acclaimed authors.

Much is known about the Brontë family… but there are also significant gaps which historians have tried to fill over the past two centuries.  In making her debut as a writer-director, O’Connor doesn’t want this film described as a “biopic”.  It’s not intending to be a thoroughly researched, blow-by-blow retelling of Emily Brontë’s upbringing and achievements.  Rather, the focus is on showing who she was as a person.

Emma Mackey (Sex Education, Death on the Nile) steps in the shoes of the title character and portrays her as a private, introverted young woman who had “hot and cold” relationships with her siblings.  There are moments when she cheekily plays with her older brother (Whitehead) and there are moments when she turns against him in a fit of brutal, hate-filled rage.  Emily’s brilliant writing has stood the test of time but this film wants to put more of her personality on the public record.  It reminds us that great artists are no different from the rest of us.  They too are complex, emotional, flawed human beings.

The biggest subplot in the film, and the one most likely to cause concern with historians since it may not have happened, is a romance between Emily and an assistant priest named William Weightman (Jackson-Cohen).  It begins as a happy, passionate relationship but it becomes problematic over time given its secretive nature.  A few cliches are used (like the Romeo & Juliet trick of important letters not being passed on) but it’s designed to show Emily as a tortured soul who transformed heartbreak into literature.

The love story is a little tiresome, but Emily is better when exploring family dynamics – from the difficulties of pleasing a demanding father, to the unspoken rivalries that develop between brothers and sisters as they mature.  O’Connor enhances the material with above-average production values.  As an example, I was lured in by a simple but beautiful scene where a silent Emily listens intently to the sound of pouring rain while attending church.

While she’s been depicted on screen before, this is the first time Emily Brontë has received her “own” film.  Fans of her Wuthering Heights should find it interesting.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 29 December 2022

Released in 2014, Paper Planes was an attempt by director Robert Connolly to create more Australian movies for younger audiences as opposed to relying on the steady stream of content coming in from America.  As someone with two daughters of his own, Connolly wanted them to see stuff on the big screen which celebrated our own places, people, and culture.

Fresh off the incredible success of The Dry, which grossed over $20 million in this country, Connolly returns to family-themed content with Blueback.  It’s based on the 1997 novel by acclaimed author Tim Winton who was involved in adapting the source material into a screenplay.  Connolly made a few changes to better suit what he was looking for (making the protagonist a woman, not telling the story in chronological order) and the end result is a 100-minute feature targeted at a Christmas school holiday release.

There are two material subplots at play here.  The weaker one is about the environment and how important it is to protect.  I’ve got no qualms with the message, but it’s handled in a simplistic manner.  Taking the timeframe back about two decades, the teenage Abby (Fogg) befriends a blue groper while diving near her family seaside home and learns how important the ocean environment is.  She then teams up with her mum, Dora (Mitchell), to protect their coastal town from being overrun by villainous developers (led by Erik Thomson) looking to make a quick buck.  There’s some contrived stuff as illustrated in a scene where Abby speaks in front of local counsellors.

The second, current day subplot is the better one – the unescapable bond that exists between a parent and their child.  The elderly mum (Alexander) is suffering from the effects of a stroke and her now grown daughter (Wasikowska) has taken a break from her work as a marine biologist to help provide care.  Memories of the past come flooding back and Abby finds herself torn between the world she’s created for herself… and the ties that still connect her to the place where she grew up.

It’s hard not to get caught up in the emotion of the finale as Abby, deftly played by Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), must selflessly balance up the needs of those around her in charting her own future.  Adding further star power are Radha Mitchell (Finding Neverland) as the headstrong version of the younger mum and Eric Bana (Chopper) as a chatty fisherman adding a dash of comedy.

Largely shot in Bremer Bay off the coast of Western Australia, Blueback can’t fully capture the essence of Tim Winton’s book but it’s not a bad effort.

You can read my chat with director Robert Connolly by clicking here.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 02 January 2023

It was only two months ago that James Gray added his name to the growing list of the directors making semi-autobiographical dramas about their childhood (Armageddon Time).  Now, it’s the chance for the iconic Steven Spielberg to do the same.  There’s no doubting the 76-year-old has earned the opportunity.  The two-time Academy Award winner (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan) is described on Wikipedia as “the most commercially successful director of all time.”

Set in the late 1950s / early 1960s, the film is centred around a shy 16-year-old named Sammy Fabelman, a character based on Spielberg and played by newcomer Gabriel LaBelle.  Not everything in Sammy’s world is great.  His parents (Williams and Dano) have an odd, rocky relationship, and he’s not the best at making friends at school.  There’s one thing that provides comfort though – movies.  Since the moment his parents took him to a cinema for the first time, Sammy has loved the craft.  He spends much of his pocket money buying film for his 8mm camera which he uses to create everything from intimate home movies to action-packed shorts.

The Fabelmans is clearly connecting with audiences given it won the lucrative People’s Choice Award at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival.  The last ten winners of that prize have gone on to earn Oscar nominations for best picture.  I’m in the minority by being slightly disappointed.  The fragmented, weird, skit-like nature to some scenes (e.g. chasing a tornado, buying a monkey) disrupt the emotional build up.

The supporting characters are largely one-note and underpowered.  The mum’s scatterbrained nature is tiring, the dad is a bore, and the Judd Hirsch heavy-handed “motivational” speech is shoved down our throats.  Also, what was up with the cliched high school bullies in the final act?  It’s as if the film wants to break away from the textbook everything-is-either-black-or-white formula but doesn’t have the guts to follow through.

Offsetting the questionable performances is 20-year-old Canadian Gabriel LaBelle who is brilliant in the lead role.  While the supporting players lack depth, LaBelle creates someone you will care about.  He provides the film’s strong core and that was enough to keep me engaged for the film’s lengthy 151-minute running time.  Sammy is an interesting, good-natured, nerdish kid who, through dogged determination, wins the respect of both family and friends.  Hard not to smile when thinking about that.

In one of the trailers for The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg describes it as being different from all his other movies as it’s about direct memories as opposed to indirect metaphors.  The project may have meant a lot to him… but it didn’t mean as much to me.