When films as highly anticipated as Us come along, others stay away. Except for three (reviewed below) that have returned after playing at VIFF and one film, Cruel Intentions, here for a week’s celebratory booking to mark its 20th anniversary. I’m not exactly sure why. It’s a tale of seduction and betrayal among a group of rich New York Teens. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe play step-siblings and very young Selma Blair and Reese Witherspoon play the virgins he wants to conquer. Highly cynical, as if that’s what we need right now.
On a more positive note you can catch that thoughtful documentary What Is Democracy? at a free sceening tonight. It’s at Simon Fraser downtown (149 W. Hastings St.) at 7 and the director, Astra Taylor will be there to talk about it. You can learn more and register at https://www.eventbrite.ca/
Us: 3 ½ stars
Woman at War: 4
Ash is Purest White: 4
The Hummingbird Project: 3
US: For Get Up, his first film, the sketch comedian Jordan Peele won a screenwriting Oscar. He used horror movie tropes to explore the racial fears felt by blacks in the United States. He’s back in the genre with his second but although the family at the centre is black, it’s not race that he’s exploring this time. It’s class. At least I think it is because the film doesn’t really tell you what it’s about. It’s well made but thematically it’s something of a rickety construct and an explanation at the end doesn’t settle much at all. It’s a hit though, and selling out screenings, including one at 10:30 Wednesday night. It’s been the most eagerly awaited horror film in some time but careful. It’s not for everyone.
It starts with a family visit to an oceanside amusement park. The daughter wanders off into a funhouse and meets an exact copy of herself, a doppelganger. Years later, now a mother herself and played by another Oscar winner, Lupita Nyong'o, she’s still haunted by memories of that encounter. Then it happens again. She’s at a summer house with her family, two children and her husband played by Winston Duke, when four people show up in the driveway, and refuse to leave. They’re dopplegangers too, of her and her family.
“Who are you?” she asks. “We’re Americans,” her counterpart says. That’s where I get the class interpretation. The film reflects the unease some middle class blacks feel about the ones who don’t have as good a life. It then watches them terrorize the family, threaten with scissors and cause bloody confrontations. With a white family too. Elizabeth Moss has to do some hard crawling covered in blood. There’s lots more going on but not much that I found very scary. Too peculiar for that. Not real, like the many classy horror films Peele says inspired him. (Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 3 ½ out of 5
WOMAN AT WAR: She’s an eco-warrior and this enjoyable film should find more than a few like-minded fans around here. It takes place in Iceland and delivers a robust environmental message with no preaching but a lot of humanity and quite a bit of quirky humor. The sound track music for instance is played right on screen every once in a while by a small combo (drums, tuba, accordion, sometimes a piano) or sung by a trio of traditionally dressed women. These and other bits of droll comedy back up the endearing performance by Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir as a choir director with a secret life.
She shoots out the power to an aluminum smelter. She brings down an entire hydro pylon and then a drone with just a bow and arrow. She eludes a helicopter armed with heat seeking-technology that pursues her across a volcanic wasteland. She also has to ponder the ethics of her actions when she gets word that an old application to adopt a child from the Ukraine has come through. It’s not off-topic at all. Benedikt Erlingsson, the writer director, has cleverly constructed his film to bring out competing demands on her time. A twin sister helps too. There’s whimsy on the surface and clear motivation below. She hates the multinational corporations soiling the landscape (Rio Tinto is mentioned) and she’s got Chinese investors getting nervous. This film is a delight with just enough reality written in to make it bite. (VanCity Theatre) 4 out of 5
ASH IS PUREST WHITE: “Not like the old days.” That observation by a character in this ambitious and involving film summarizes exactly what the director Zhangke Jia is trying to say about his native China. Loyalty, human connection, commitment have dried up as speedy development and the hunger for money have taken over. It’s not a new idea to him (he’s said it in previous movies) but the statement here is both subtle and striking. And using an epic love story in the world of low-level gangsters is an intriguing way to make it again.
Zhao Tao, the director’s wife and usual lead actor, plays Qiao, the girlfriend of a mob leader named Bin, played by Liao Fan.
He’s a jianghu, part of a criminal society that grew in the Mao years and after, espousing ideals ofloyalty and righteousness. Among themselves, of course. That’s now missing we soon learn as she saves his life, ends up going to jail for him and finds when she gets out that not only does he not show up to welcome her but he has a new girlfriend. She goes looking for him and uses some clever trickery to feed herself, survive and make him come to her. The story sprawls over 17 years; she does a lot of travelling and we’re shown the changes China is going through (a lot of new construction, the Three Gorges Dam filling up, hucksters talking up new schemes). We also feel a lot in a highly dramatic, very moody but leisurely final meeting in which she wants to “get a few things straight” and he reveals the fears and resentments that drive him. It’s the new China that he and this superb movie are talking about. The film won for best screenplay at the Asian Film Awards earlier this week. (VanCity Theatre and Silver City Riverport) 4 out of 5
THE HUMMINGBIRD PROJECT: This one opened the film festival last fall and Canadian connections aside seems rather lightweight for that honor. It neglects to really capitalize on its main theme—the trivial pursuits of modern entrepreneurs—and gives us a breezy competition story instead. Entertaining though. Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgård play a pair of high-speed stock traders who get into a race with their former boss (Salma Hayek) to secure a tiny advantage worth millions. They want to build a fiber-optic line from Kansas to New Jersey that can send information a few milliseconds faster than currently possible. Traders can make money with even that miniscule an advantage. How small? A millisecond is how long it takes a hummingbird to flap a wing.
Their line goes underground, under mountains, national parks and Amish land where an elder tries to argue that “high speed is not our priority.” Salma’s line is to be above ground, on hydro towers. She tries to sabotage their efforts and they need to lower their transmission time from 17 to 16 milliseconds or the investors will bail. The movie by Montreal’s Kim Nguyen (an Oscar contender for a previous one) and filmed in Quebec will keep you engrossed although it rarely gets intense. It’s also inconsistent, shifting moods for no good reason. It would have helped to go deeper and shout rather than just imply its condemnation of business today. (Scotiabank and suburban theatres) 3 out of 5