Nightcrawler (2014)

It’s difficult to find much information about Nightcrawler’s writer/director Dan Gilroy. With only a handful of writing credits to his name during a career spanning over 20 years he appears both a seasoned veteran and a green upstart. Whatever explains his trajectory in the industry, it led to this film – so it can’t be bad.

Utilising the intense nocturnal-ness that made his performances in Donnie Darko and Zodiac so striking, Jake Gyllenhaal stars as sociopath Louis Bloom, a creepy autodidact intent on cashing in on television news’ insatiable lust for bloody stories with which to terrify audiences and therefore drive up ratings. Armed with a police radio and a video camera, Bloom trawls the night, seeking out violent crime and horrific accidents, often arriving on the scene before the emergency services. Once capturing the debris on film (at any cost), he sells the footage to a news broadcaster just in time to make their breakfast show.

Gyllenhaal gives the performance of his career. He makes Bloom a magnetic anti-hero. What he captures best is the drive and ambition of his character, causing us to be awkwardly awestruck at how passionate he pursues his depraved goals. This, along with the narrow-minded subjectivity of the direction (that’s a good thing), invites us to get behind Bloom and – as the stakes get higher – subconsciously wince when the obstacles stack up against him and smirk with guilty glee when he gets his way.

All 3 central characters are drawn well. It was no surprise to me to learn that the first-time director is an experienced writer. Although this is Gyllenhaal’s moment and he’ll be the one touted for awards, it cannot be denied that both Rene Russo, who plays news director Nina, and Riz Ahmed, who plays Bloom’s protégé Rick, match the leading man at every step with skilled and detailed performances. They deliver characters that are designed for us to measure Bloom’s mental state against. Just how abnormal is he in a world that was already amoral before he entered it?

The reason that Russo and Ahmed’s performances might fly under the radar has something to do with how attractive constructed Lou Bloom’s dialogue is. This is a man who doesn’t let the qualms of others get in the way of his own eloquence and quick wit. Bloom is sharp, he never takes his eye of the ball and Gilroy has a field day with his lines, feeding Gyllenhaal consistently tasty paragraphs, all of which he delivers with those unnervingly bright eyes.

The film is shot as nicely as it is written. For a debut director, it can’t have hurt to be telling a story about a man whose life mission is to meticulously frame the subjects he is capturing on camera; it must have kept Gilroy as focused as his main character. Especially impressive is the ebb and flow of pace during the film’s climactic scenes which is what keeps them thrilling for longer. Some of the personal scenes involving Bloom alone might have been handled a little slower but that’s as much my taste as anything.

It’s a really good film, one of the best of the year.

Side Effects (2013)

All artists – directors especially – run the risk of becoming too precious with their output. Reticent to send out into the world something that doesn’t exactly embody their style/outlook or fully display their talents, they can find the gaps between pieces of work starting to increase. Years soon pass with no new releases. Eventually, if the one film every six (or more) years isn’t gold dust, it can just about finish a perfectionist off.

Steven Soderbergh, it seems, experiences no such creative block. Side Effects is his 5^th film in 2 years and it isn’t bad either. If nothing else, Soderbergh deserves credit for the solid consistency of his work and the drive and ambition with which he dives into each new project.

This said, there is often a feeling of slight disappointment upon leaving most of Soderbergh’s recent films. They seem to promise something special and original before settling into one of many well constructed but well-worn narrative paths about halfway through.

The Side Effects trailer invites one to expect a scathing attack on the pharmaceutical industry and a story that perhaps focuses on the negative consequences of prescribing brain chemistry-altering drugs to depressed individuals. The film does begin with this set up but somewhere along the way abandons any serious agenda in favour of the twists and turns of a traditional thriller. It gives the impression of being through composed from start to finish, with writer Scott Z. Burns unable to follow through on his original idea so juicing it up with one shocking revelation after another for his own amusement.

Acting is typically dependable from stars such as Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Channing Tatum. The screenplay is a little hammy and much of the dialogue doesn’t ring true but the cracks are capably papered over by the cast. Given what seems like the fewest lines and handed the arguably easy task of looking distraught for much of the film, Rooney Mara gives the most believable performance. She plays Emily, a woman prescribed ‘Ablixa’, a trial antidepressant with some undesirable side effects. As a tragedy unfolds, Emily’s doctor Jonathan (Jude Law) faces charges of negligence and the motives of everyone involved are gradually untangled (then re-tangled and finally re-untangled).

The thing that holds Side Effects together once its narrative begins to slip is Steven Soderbergh’s workmanship as a director and editor. The film is well put together by a man who knows how to tell a story. This makes it enjoyable long after you realise that the controversial issue-based drama you were sold isn’t quite what is being delivered to your eyes and ears.

Whatever genre it begins in, the film ends up as a sort of neo-noir with yellow (not black) washing out all else in the colour palette. I quite like this. Soderbergh did the same thing with Contagion, using some sort of filter throughout the film to jaundice almost every shot. It makes the film look ill and is very effective although not necessarily appealing to the eye. Its phlegmy aesthetic is just one of I’m sure many little tricks the director uses to give the film its shape and consistency.

Side Effects may not be the film you were expecting to see, but it is a good watch. Although the themes it touches upon may provoke an afternoon on Wikipedia, the film itself doesn’t clarify or engage in such debates as “how to treat depression” or “who benefits from prescribing certain medications – the patient or the pharmaceuticals?” It simply exploits this subject matter to fuel a thriller – albeit an enjoyable one.

Stoker (2013)

So generally infantile are trailers in their desperate splurge of what distributors feel are the best moments of a film and so rife are they with conspicuous plot spoilers that I’m sold to any film that uses its minute-long advertising spot to give nothing away about what it might be about, what happens in it or even what genre it might be conveniently placed into.

See I hate trailers. I never post them. But this one is perfect.

Having watched Stoker, I remain somewhat unable to pigeonhole it. Psychological thriller? Dramatic horror? However best to comfortably describe it, the film holds up as one of the most affecting I’ve seen for many months.

Mia Waikowska plays India, an introverted teenager on the cusp of adulthood whose father has recently died in a car crash. Acutely aware of everything her 5 senses deliver and inherently suspicious of everybody around her, India lives with her troubled mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) in their isolated family home. When India’s estranged Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) introduces himself, she finds herself repelled and captivated in equal measure by her new relation as he aids her transition into adulthood.

Stoker is beautifully made, with a directorial touch as delicate as the central character’s super-tuned senses. The care taken in framing each subject is absolutely sublime and the pinpoint symbolism (keys, shoes, locked drawers, trees) is better than Hitchcockian.

Sound design is also very careful and close. Slow egg cracking, squeaking wine glasses and the amalgamation of a digging-spade with heavily played piano keys are about as good as it gets for a micro-sound junkie.

The trio of actors at the heart of the drama play their dysfunctional family with minimal… minimal drama actually, which really suits the piece because under each ice-cold exterior, you can see everyone is boiling. Uncle Charlie has a simmering malevolence, Evelyn is bubbling with grief and jealousy and India is brewing the potential of adulthood, never betraying quite in which direction she is blossoming until the final act.

I suppose you always realise a good film by how necessary everything you see and hear is to the effect it produces. Mysterious gestures, fastidiously-designed montages and complicated sound processes can all seem very gimmicky when used as a smokescreen to deceive audiences by glossing over a film’s shortcomings. But in a film such as this, where every carefully realised element is integral to its nature, the effect is simply stunning.

Maybe I’ve just had too many underwhelming experiences in the cinema of late but when a film completely traverses the alienation of a huge silver screen, beguiles you into its odd little world and then horrifies your sensibilities to the point where it still cloys at your mind 10 days after seeing it – well, that’s something to celebrate.