Tag Archives: The Voices

Snow White more an off-grey (a review)

by

0

Snow_White_and_the_Huntsman_Poster

I find it difficult to appreciate a movie in isolation (its, not mine). At the same time that I strive to enjoy the movie, I also try to break down its various elements, ideally without immediate comparison to everything else I have seen.

Some movies make this easier by being truly unique stories (The Voices, for example), whereas others are either so familiar or so derivative that I find it virtually impossible to see it in isolation. The latter situation was the case for Snow White and the Huntsman, the 2012 take of the very familiar Grimm Brothers fairy tale by director Rupert Sanders.

This is not the Disney version, by a mile, but rather a much darker, more sinister take on the story of a young beauty (Kristen Stewart) condemned to death by her vainglorious step mother (Charlize Theron) who fights for her freedom in the dark woods where she meets all kinds of people and mystical creatures, including dwarves. Together, they reach a castle of renegades and Snow leads them into battle against her step mother.

So, we have the check list covered: evil step mother, check; mirror-mirror, check; bring me her heart, check; dwarves, check; poison apple, check; Prince Charming, sorta check.

Doing my best to isolate this movie from everything else, I give it a moderately passing grade. It is a fairy tale, so the dialogue hits the extremes of leaden cliché to screaming cliché.

There is no subtext to this movie…none, zero, nada, zilch. So don’t go looking for any. It is on-the-nose storytelling, which again, makes sense within the context of a fairy tale, but given that the film targets young adults to adults (much too dark for small children), I would have hoped for more.

The screenwriters offered a brief moment, where the huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) begins to let us into why he is so tortured over the death of his wife. But as soon as the moment starts, it slams shut and we are excluded from understanding the character beyond his alcoholic ramblings and Thor-like simplicity. (PS If I hadn’t seen the movie Rush, I might just think this is who Hemsworth is.)

So, where the dialogue wanes, the visuals have to take over and here, the director earns his keep. Special effects do not overwhelm the story, but instead are woven nicely into live action sequences to augment the reality. There was only one scene where I felt the director fell asleep at the SFX wheel and allowed his art director to run amok.

Dwarves huntsman

And perhaps my favourite part of the visual effects was how they took normal sized British actors and turned them into dwarves. Masterfully done. Imagine Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan all about a meter tall yet perfectly proportioned, standing next to or fighting alongside Hemsworth. Don’t know how they did it…don’t want to know.

Where I found the movie particularly weak, however, was in the development of Snow White. Rather than be the protagonist of the story, I felt she was the victim of the story, literally being dragged across the countryside to avoid capture. While she clearly wasn’t the “Oh my. Dear me” victim of the Disney version, she was also not the “Girl Power” version that I think the movie promised.

Two snows

When she wasn’t being rescued by one or more men, she was being rescued by a mystical inner force of which she was initially unaware and over which she had no control.

I was willing to let her be the victim over the first part of the story, but I needed her to turn around at the midpoint and attempt to kick some ass.

Now, to open the comparative flood gates, this movie has Tolkein written all over it. You’ll see dwarves walking across hill tops. Floating towns will burn. Dark forests will haunt you. Guys with swords and axes will be moody.

Now I appreciate that this is bound to happen, as there are certain pastiches that run rampant throughout fairy tales and epic sagas. I am speaking here more in terms of cinematography, however. In several parts of the journey sequence and the battle scenes, it looked like the director decided to save a few bucks by splicing in rejected footage left behind by Peter Jackson.

For what is it, Snow White and the Huntsman is not the worst 90 minutes I have ever spent watching a movie. It’s just a damned shame that the running time is 127 minutes.

The Voices gets a hearing (a review)

by

1

poster

Not one to generally participate in the Toronto International Film Festival, it was a rare evening in which I found myself standing in a rush line to see a movie, but a friend of mine wanted to see the latest Ryan Reynolds film called The Voices. This is not your typical Ryan Reynolds film.

Reynolds is Jerry Hickfang, a good-natured if skittish guy who works in the shipping department of a bathroom fixtures company in Milton, the derelict remains of a town in Nowhere, USA. Jerry is a nice guy, who lives above a derelict bowling alley with his dog Bosco and cat Mr. Whiskers. And of course, Jerry has the hots for office cupcake Fiona, a misplaced Brit with a craving for bigger things, played by Gemma Arterton. For her part, Fiona finds Jerry a little creepy, but is not above using his puppy lust to get a lift during a rain storm.

Jerry Hickfang (Ryan Reynolds) struggles to understand Mr. Whiskers' advice

Jerry Hickfang (Ryan Reynolds) struggles to understand Mr. Whiskers’ advice

Oh, and the other thing you probably need to know about Jerry is that he is in court-appointed psychiatric treatment, isn’t really good about taking his meds, and has a family history of hearing voices, but that’s not something he likes to talk about.

So far, so harmless. But after a literal run-in with a deer who begs Jerry to finish him off, the blood-letting never really stops and the rest of the movie becomes a giant slip-and-slide of mostly implied blood and offal.

So, The Voices is a thriller…and a drama…and a comedy…and a farce. You squirm in revulsion (never really reaches horror) as often as you LOL.

Director Marjane Satrapi (who brought us Persepolis) attended the screening and describes the story as completely fucked up. She said she was mesmerized by the screenplay and desperately wanted to meet the man who penned it to see what messed up human could conceptualize such a story. So she was surprised when she met Michael R Perry, a tall normal-looking fellow.

Marjane Satrapi

Marjane Satrapi

As Perry explained, he wanted to look at the life of someone of multiple personality disorder from their perspective rather than society’s. And in that, he succeeded.

With Satrapi’s help, the two clearly crafted the oddly idyllic yet troubled world within Jerry’s mind, giving the audience only the briefest glimpse of how the rest of the world saw things. With Jerry, it was all perfect love and butterflies. To the rest of us, it was squalor and pain.

Where the story fell down for me was in explaining why everything went wrong so suddenly. In writing circles, we talk about “Why today?” Why does your story begin today, at this moment, and not 6 weeks ago or 5 months from now? In this case, what was the event that caused Jerry to go from lovable schmuck to… Some might suggest it was the deer accident, but even Mr. Whiskers called that bullshit

The other place I felt let down was that the conflict never escalated, it merely accumulated. Rather than find interesting ways for Jerry’s mania to manifest itself, the writer simply repeated the same event over and over, as though each of the characters voluntarily walked into a wood chipper.

And I don’t know if the ending was presented as written or was something that blossomed out of Satrapi’s mind, but it was lazy and bordered on the ludicrous. It was a bad after-taste on a film that had merits.

Ryan Reynolds, Gemma Arterton, Anna Kendrick

Ryan Reynolds, Gemma Arterton, Anna Kendrick

On the plus side, Ryan Reynolds was amazing to watch…this was not the charming goofball romantic comedy, although Jerry was sadly charming when he wasn’t obviously tortured by his snarky brogue-spewing cat. (NOTE: Bosco and Mr. Whiskers easily have the funniest lines in this film.)

Gemma Arterton’s Fiona was a delight. She was delicious to watch as the voluptuous vixen whose biggest fear in life is being bored. Problem solved!

Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air), as tier-two love interest Lisa (see, the writer even repeated this beat), was largely wasted. Her character was pretty two-dimensional. As nice girl looking for a nice guy, her function was to have Jerry explain his condition to the audience (exposition disguised as opening up).

The Voices is definitely worth seeing, if only for what it attempts to do. I can’t help feeling, however, that if they had rewritten the screenplay a few more times, they would have achieved their goals much better than this.

My recommend (and that of my friend) is that this is a Cheapie Tuesday movie (or whatever your local half-price day is).

 

PS I was unable to find a trailer for this movie, so I offer the following interview with Satrapi at Sundance London…I will warn you, however, that it does include a lot more info about the plot than I gave above.