My Cousin Rachel

First Hit: Although the story was telegraphed from the beginning, it almost worked.

Ambrose Ashley (not credited) owns a large estate on the Cornish coast of England. He’s kind hearted and is guardian to an orphan boy who is his cousin Philip (as an adult Sam Claflin). Because Ambrose is sickly, he goes to Italy to heal in the sunshine.

There Ambrose meets Rachel (Rachel Weisz) who he falls in love with and marries. We know this through the letters he sends some to Philip. Then the letters get fewer and far between but each letter that comes through tells a tale of Ambrose thinking Rachel is poisoning him.

After Ambrose’s death, Philip swears he will kill Rachel if he ever see’s her. Because Ambrose never signed a new will, Philip inherits the estate but will not have sole control until he’s 25. Prior to his 25th birthday Rachel shows up to his home. Instead of disliking her, Philip finds Rachel appropriately humble and thoughtful.

It is obvious that she is not really being kind for the sake of kindness but because she has a plan. This is the failing of the film. There are too many obvious hints that Rachel is at Philip’s estate to make money. There is nothing really hidden. I don’t know if it was the script or acting but I didn’t buy the premise and therefore the ending seemed obvious.

Weisz was strong, beautiful and seductive; however, I think the script had too many breadcrumbs to make it mysterious. Claflin was OK as Philip. He was naïve enough, but again I think the script was overtly obvious and therefore, knowing the story before it unfolds in not a good trait for a film. Iain Glen was strong as Nick Kendall, the role of Philip’s Godfather. I liked the way he carried the aristocracy of his position. Holliday Grainger as Louise Kendall was the best of the lot. Her desire for Philip was perfectly subdued and obvious. Roger Michell wrote and directed this film. It was a mediocre attempt to create suspense and mystery.

Overall: Despite being a good idea, it didn’t quite make it.

Their Finest

First Hit:  A very sweet and thoughtful film about making a propaganda film in World War II England.

The story takes place in London during war time and between the German buzz bombing. Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) interviews for, what she thinks is, a secretarial position at the Ministry of Information only to discover she gets the job as scriptwriter for propaganda films. She needs to money as she is supporting herself and her, almost, husband Ellis Cole (Jack Huston) who is an artist and was injured in Spanish Civil War. She's not officially married to Ellis but wears a wedding ring and takes his name.

The British propaganda films, designed to motivate the population to work hard for the war effort, are not being well received. Fellow writer Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin) is hard on Catrin because she’s a woman and screenwriting is a man’s world.

However, he sends her on an assignment based on a newspaper article where twin women stole their father’s boat to go to Dunkirk to help save the lives of men. When Catrin interviews the women, she discovers that the boat stopped off shore. Never getting to Dunkirk, they did get wounded home because some of the boats that came from Dunkirk were overloaded and those boats gave them wounded personnel to take home.

The written article makes it more than what they did, but Catrin, Tom and the film making team make a variation of the adventure. The film uses an older famous actor Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy) as part of the characters and as the only strong actor, he has ideas of how the plot and his part needs to go.

However, he begins to trust Catrin’s writing as she knows what she’s doing and when writing in concert with Tom, they excel.

What was interesting was this film also showed how important women were and their strength in helping the country defeat Germany. It also showed how people had to scale back their lives to support the war effort. I genuinely enjoyed watching Catrin watch the film she wrote and how the audience around her were engaged with the story. This was touching.

Arterton was fantastic in this role. Her reserved, yet expressive ways through the film created a wonderful character. Huston was good as the injured artist. Buckley was strong as Catrin’s fellow writer. His disbelief in women being able to write subtlety changing as the film enfolds was wonderful. Nighy was superb as the aristocratic and self-obsessed actor who comes to appreciate what he has. Gaby Chiappe wrote a wonderful screenplay, which unfolded with greater strength as the film went on. Lone Scherfig did a great job of directing this story and keeping the feel of the time and how films were constructed in the 1940’s just right.

Overall:  I was surprised by how much I liked and felt this film as it moved along.

Tommy's Honour

First Hit:  I liked the historical and romantic aspects of this film. Tom Morris (Peter Mullan) is thought of as the father of golf and golf courses. Although he owns St. Andrews land, is the green’s keeper of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, he and the club is controlled by the Captain of the club, Alexander Boothby (Sam Neill). The Captain heads a consortium of men who run the club and the betting on golf games at the club.

Tom has accepted his station in life, green’s keeper, caddie, golf club maker, golfer, and golf course land owner. His son Tommy (Jack Lowden), however, doesn’t believe he needs to be relegated to this lower station in life, and his resentment shows in many scenes.

He and his father often played golf together representing the wealthy who bet on them, resulting in huge cash winnings to the bettors. They, in turn, gave Tom and Tommy a small cut of the winnings. Tommy thought this whole arrangement was wrong and demeaning and struck out to change the relationship between the bettors and the players. He wanted to be in control of the winnings and give the bettors their due after the tournament.

Along with wanting to change those social norms, Tommy also met Meg Drinnen (Ophelia Lovibond) a slightly older woman who was a waitress in a restaurant. He falls in love with her despite his family’s reticence to accept her. As their relationship grows and his golfing prowess becomes well known throughout Great Britain, Tommy’s mother Nancy (Therese Bradley) searches for and finds out about Meg’s past. Social convention of the time stated that Tommy should not marry Meg, but Meg’s kindness and strength win the family over.

I loved the scenes they use to attempt to show what golfing was like in the late 1800's; teeing up with sand, the clubs they used, greens that were not manicured, and playing in all types of weather (rain and snow). I liked seeing the old balls and clubs used but wondered about and wanted to know more about the slots in the club face when it was brought up by a competitor.

Mullan was wonderful as the father. His pride for his son just barely showed through which would have been perfectly appropriate for the time. Lowden was OK as the son. My issues with this role was that the film didn’t show any of the hard work that must have gone into him being the best golfer of the time. It takes more than just swagger. I did think that he did a great job as Meg’s lover and husband. Neill was strong as the Captain. His arrogance with his position was appropriate. Lovibond was divine. Her kindness, humbleness, and strength was perfect for the role. Bradley was wonderful in an antagonistic role. Her softening towards Meg was perfectly done. Pamela Marin and Kevin Cook did an OK job of creating an interesting script. I would have preferred more information about St. Andrews and the work that Tommy had to put in to become the winner of The Open tournament so many times in a row. However, in covering the love, dedication, and support of family was well conceived. Director Jason Connery did a good job of creating and showing characters from this script. However I couldn’t get over how little practice Tommy did to be so good at golf. I played golf in my younger years and know how difficult the game is to learn.

Overall:  This film and story is about love, the history of golf, social classes, and family, not a bad story to tell.

Song to Song

First Hit:  Although I’m generally a fan of Director Terrence Malik’s work, especially the visualizations, this film felt lifeless and unmoving all the way through. A Malik film like Knight of Cups, touched me deeply and at that moment, I think I’m aligned with Malik’s vision. However, other films he does I might end up liking the pictures and the theme is lost on me.

In this film, few of the pictures were good and I wondered what the point was. Could it have been that if one takes a bite of the apple (signed to a music record deal) then the world opens up. However it only seemed to opened up with increased opportunities for sexual encounters? If so, then I was left thinking; so what. If the point of the film was viewing how the music life in Austin (Malik went to school in Austin) exists and the people in it are just intimately experimenting with others, and they seem to live in a Song to Song way, then so what. I didn't get the point of the film.

Ryan Gosling plays BV who is a musician who gets signed to a record label run by Cook (Michael Fassbender) who is living the big life, filled with things, women, and connections with bands and rock stars. He's pulling the strings, at least around Austin. One of the women he’s linked with is Faye (Rooney Mara).

Faye meets BV at one of Cook’s parties and they begin to have a relationship. However, because they don’t tell each other the truth and they mostly live through their sexuality and what they can feel, the relationship gets convoluted. Faye still has sex with Cook and BV spends time with his old girlfriends Lykke (Lykke Li) and Amanda (Cate Blanchett).

Cook marries Rhonda (Natalie Portman) but has sex with Faye and Faye has sex with Zoey (Berenice Marlohe). There is a lot more of this that goes on in the film, but because it is a Malik film, it is very stylized, virtually no conversational dialogue, and it jumps from place and scene to a different place and scene frequently.

The pictures around Austin were nice and, to me, better than the actual place as I found it more Texan than shown here.

Gosling was good in many sections but the lack of story direction seemed to make him more lost than usual. Mara was one the better parts of this film. Her face and looks are so filled with questions, depth, and searching energy that it fit well in this film. Fassbender was good as the guy who liked money, power, and the things it allowed him to do. Portman was interesting as her intelligence and darkness shined through her scenes. Marlohe was OK as the attractive woman who seduced Faye. Blanchett was OK as this role didn’t really take advantage of her conversational abilities. Holly Hunter as Rhonda’s mom was intense. Malik did the screenplay and it would be interesting to see what it was and how he scripted the scenes. His direction was muddied if what he wanted was the audience to feel something.

Overall:  This film just didn’t work well for me and I found myself sitting there wondering when it would be over.

Bitter Harvest

First Hit:  This film was a bitter pill to swallow let alone watch.

It is incredibly sad when the Holodomora, a hugely historical event of the last 100 years, gets such a milquetoast treatment. Russia admits that between this event of starvation, birth deaths, and war killed between 7 and 12 million Ukrainians.

The film tries to tell this story through a love affair and romance between Yuri (Max Irons) and Natalka (Samantha Barks). One unfortunate circumstance of this film is that there was little believable chemistry between these two. The film portrays her as damaged because of her family’s dynamics and him as a non-warrior because he’s a talented artist. When Russia decides it needs all the grain and riches in the Ukraine because Russia is starving and struggling to survive, Stalin orders his troops to take everything of value in the country by force.

By taking the food, their religious icons, and anything of value, the Ukrainians are starved to death. Unfortunately, the film’s treatment of this horrific event, and the lack of providing clarity around the depth of this historical precedence, turned me off. It might have worked if the love story was well done and a key driver, but it wasn’t. It was sort of a mishmash and smattering of scenes that just didn’t add up to telling this story.

One of the stories has Yuri’s grandfather Ivan (Terrance Stamp), once a famous war leader, leading their village’s resistance to the Russian occupiers by organizing the Ukrainian men. Another story is Yuri goes to Kiev to become an artist, but finding out how bad it is at home he stages, with friends, revolutionary talks in Kiev and gets jailed for his association with Ukraine. You have a story of his wife and villagers being pressed into subservience, including Natalka earning favor for her family by giving her body to a Russian leader.

Even the story of Yuri evolving to a warrior, breaking out of a Russian prison, and coming back to his home village lacked the kind of dynamics to make it work. None of the stories have enough oomph to make it all work.

Irons is flat as Yuri. I never bought him as an artist or revolutionary warrior. Barks was better in her role, but the continual dark scenes and lack of a consistent storyline hurt her part in the film. Stamp looked tired and bored as Ivan. His natural commanding presence was wasted and it seemed as if he knew this while being filmed. Richard Bachynsky Hoover wrote a weak script, especially if he wanted to share this horrific historical event with the world. George Mendeluk probably followed the script and story by Hoover, but I think he probably contributed to this mess.

Overall:  This horrible story was hidden from the world when it took place and as the first film to try to tell this story, it failed.