By Anne Brodie
Saoirse Ronan is nothing short of masterful in Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun. The four-time Oscar nominee is Rona, who with her Master’s degree in Biology has leaves London behind after ten years to help her father on their remote sheep farm in Papay, in the Scotland’s North Sea Orkneys. It’s a wind-whipped rock off an island off an island, where Nature shapes every moment. The thing is, she’s battling a powerful enemy – alcohol – and escaping the city of her helplessness. She joins AA meetings as her mother looks on anxiously, and does her farm chores – see her birth a baby sheep – as Fingscheidt fuses past and present. We see why Rona’s lost everything, including a man she loved, due to drink. She’s sober but fragile with a strong attachment to alcohol but decides to weather recovery on her own. Rona rents a small isolated seaside cabin with support from her religious mother (Saskia Reeves) and none from her father (Stephane Dillane) who due to his mental state spends his time in bed. The story has a wonderful grasp on the glories of raw nature; we meet the disappearing corncrake which she’s surveying for a local Nature operation, selkies (seals) with whom she communicates, roaring incessant winds and a rock face cliff like nowhere else. She refers to her “personal geology” and being at one with all she sees. It’s magical sometimes, spiritual, and urgent, but the film is also choppy, muddled and overworked at points. Transformation and pure power create a stunning end chapter, a brilliant piece of art, psychology, timelessness, natural history and renewal. Adapted from Amy Liptrot’s 2016 memoir. In theatres now.
The Problem With People, co-written and produced by its stars Paul Reiser and Colm Meaney, transports us to Ireland where the old and new worlds are about to collide. Meany’s Ciáran and Reiser’s Barry are cousins who don’t know the other exists because their family argued a century ago and the New York and Irish branches haven’t spoken since then. Ciáran’s grandfather apparently on his deathbed, demands that his son reach out to the New York cousins, invite them to come over and patch things up. “So I can have peace in me life”. Barry, a wealthy businessman accepts out of curiosity and finds himself in a humble isolated village – he’s taken in by his family, celebrated by villagers in the pub and begins to fall in love with the people and place while experiencing all manner of stereotypical Irishisms – unable to pronounce Irish names, diving into pub culture, glorying in the native forthrightness and warmth. Before long, his daughter Natalya (Jane Levy) shows up after being dumped by her girlfriend; she needs a change of scene and also falls in love with the Irish ways. This isn’t a deep film; it’s amusing, Meany and Reiser have strong comic chemistry, the scenery on the rural coast is wild and beautiful; it’s upbeat and friendly, but don’t expect a memorable experience – a reasonable timewaster. Theaters today.
Rossif Sutherland has his own TV series! The youngest of the Sutherland acting dynasty stars in Murder in a Small Town a detective series shot in British Columbia with a strongly Canadian cast and crew. He’s Karl, a conscientious, upright man, assigned to Gibsons, a quiet seaside town, as its new Chief of Police. He’s left the city behind and divorced his wife seeking a fresh start in a less frenetic environment. His daughter (Dakota Guppy) has followed him out there and becomes enmeshed in one of his cases. He meets Cassandra (Kristin Kreuk) who doesn’t want a relationship but she does want lunch. They hit it off immediately. Meanwhile, someone has murdered an elderly man by the book – a heavy book. His friend George (James Cromwell) who came to visit says he didn’t see anything, and a swift glance around the murder scene gives Karl vital information, like one of two WWII “trench art” weapons. The other is missing. Cassandra stays over that night but Karl gets up and leaves to follow the friend as he rows out into the sea in the dark, and asks him if he threw away evidence. George tells Cassandra that he must leave to atone for something. The series allows us to revel in the eye catching location, its pretty pastel seaside cottages and the natural world. The series features a new crime each week with Canadian stars like Noah Reid, Devon Sawa, Stana Katic and R.H. Thompson. Tuesday nights on Global TV in Canada and Fox in the US.
Karrie Crouse and Will Jones’ Hold Your Breath is set in 1930s Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl crisis of extreme, relentless dust storms that devastated lives, property and hope for many and changed the ecology of the US and Canadian prairies. The governments had urged people to go to the arid plains and farm. They over-farmed and mechanised and nature fought back. Millions left the area, while some stayed behind and battled brutal conditions, starvation, thirst and death. Sarah Paulson plays Margaret Bellum, the mother of two girls, a boy and one child she just buried. Her husband is away building a bridge for a long period; everything is up to her. She prays for deliverance from the dust storms and stays put. The storms rage – incredible footage of the storms continues through most of the film, and Margaret’s anxiety is in full force. She thinks there is a threatening stranger seeing a blurred figure in the dust. Neighbours tell her a stranger killed a family recently and no one has seen him; he may still be around. Her daughters got hold of a book, the story of the ghostly evil Grey Man, that frightens them and they fear he is out there, the killer. And then a man named Wallace shows up (Ebon Moss Bachrach) and claims to be a pastor. But her imagination and anxiety only ramp up and she, like us, are unable to tell reality from hallucination. Thankfully she’s good with a rifle. The sound and the overwhelming dust colours every shot of the film, and while we know the storms are “created”, they feel real and show us the damage they caused to real people back then physically and psychologically. Desiccated farm animals litter the land that is now desert; their cow has stopped giving milk so starvation seems imminent. Margaret begins to act out in desperation and mental agitation, and the local sheriff takes her son away. The tension of the constant storms wears deeply on us, as it would have a hundredfold for those who lived it. Margaret, a pillar of the community, comes to her wit’s end and only by sheer force of her will and love for the children can she hope to move forward. An immersive film that takes us with it, it offers a twist on the thriller genre, a period piece to help us understand the past and a portrait of a family in crisis. It made its world premiere at #TIFF24.
Hilariously irritating in that British passive-aggressive manner! The Franchise on HBO Max – Oct 6 features eight episodes putting the fraught behind-the-scenes world of streaming production under one hot, bright light. Eager beaver filmmakers are attempting to launch an action superhero film the first in what they hope will be a lucrative franchise. Sam Mendes co-created and directs this sometimes savage portrait of Hollywood money-inspired megalomania, I mean creativity, trying to break free of limitations and megalomaniacs. Himesh Patel is the First Assistant Director and the load seems to be on his shoulders. The actual director (Daniel Bruhl) is busily creating an image for himself as a sensitive poet and mental giant but his little scenarios – and brutal treatment of cast and crew – have a cost. Richard E. Grant is hysterical as a kind of outer space wise man, in flowing, future-y robes as he sneers at everyone and makes pronouncements. He finds films too dark, visually speaking; they add a second sun to the set which burns the stars’ eyeballs. The self-satisfied American producer arrives and tosses his ego around, a good chance to stick it to Hollywood, which the UK film industry isn’t. Good fun, laughter at people’s expense, trapped with the entire group in a warehouse day after day, night after night…well, it adds up. Sez one guy “this is not a dream factory but an abattoir” FUN!
Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field follows the multi-award-winning costume designer who won an Emmy for The Devil Wears Prada and looks inside her unfettered imagination. From providing the looks for Sex and the City, Emily in Paris, Ugly Betty, Murphy Brown and at least 35 more projects, Field has left her imprint. And who could forget her fiery image, still a redhead in her eighties with full makeup and unforgettable clothes, she’s ruled the roost in TV film and streaming for decades. She opened a store in New York with a new philosophy – every colour goes with every colour; she is allergic to trends and feels free to shop at Payless, Bergdorf’s or Bendel’s. It’s one’s unique taste and expression that counts. RuPaul was an early hire, connecting with shoppers like Carol Channing, Lena Horne, Cyndy Lauper, Farrah Fawcett, and Madonna (Madoodoo they called her in private). JFK Jr was thrown out of the shop for calling the help weirdos. Field also ran her Hotel Venus and its erotic theatre. She claims to have “taught” both Madonna and Lady Gaga about costuming. Archival and new interviews with Jean Michel Basquiat, Kim Cattrall, Lily Collins, Laverne Cox, David Dalrymple, Connie Fleming, David Frankel, Keith Haring, Debbie Harry, Willi Ninja, Orfeh, Sarah Jessica Parker, Molly Rogers, Daphne Rubin-Vega and Darren Star bring insights about her tremendous influence these fifty years. Great footage of Field swimming underwater in an ultra-chic bathing suit, wearing full jewelry. She springs off a few bon mots and her contributions and insights are illuminating as are her descriptions of the East Village cultural hub in the 70s and 80s. TVOD on October 8.