Olivia Colman

WICKED LITTLE LETTERS: a sparkling Jessie Buckley and an interesting take on repression

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Photo caption: Jessie Buckley in WICKED LITTLE LETTERS. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Jessie Buckley sparkles in the comedy Wicked Little Letters, about a contretemps between English neighbors that erupted into scandal. It’s 1920, and, though although no longer technically in the Victorian (or even Edwardian ) Period, Victorian social mores prevailed, and the stuffiness, repression and classism make easy targets for Wicked Little Letters.

Buckley plays Rose, a vibrant single mom who may or may not be a war widow. Foul-mouthed and a joyous carouser, Rose is decidedly tot adhering to the social and sexual mores of the time. Her ultrareligious and ridiculously proper neighbor Edith, (Olivia Colman) on the other hand, could be a poster girl for devout virginity; Edith lives under the tyranny of her father Edward (Timothy Spall), a bullying, racist, patriarchal prig.

The two women start out friendly, but inevitably fall out. Edith is shocked to received a series of profane, obscene and vituperative letters. Edward brings in the police, and soon Rose is on trial for sending the letters, although she denies it. What will happen to Rose? Who really sent the poison pen letters? Wicked Little Letters‘ story closely follows a true story, which you can read about if you Google “Littlehamption Letters Scandal“.

Here’s the most interesting aspect of Wicked Little Letters. We are used to watching people who are sexually and/or socially repressed acting out perversely (see the TV preacher or right wing politician scandal du jour). But here, we have someone who is so angry about BEING repressed, that the perverse behavior comes out of her rage.

This really isn’t much of whodunit, because the authorities, blinded by their own stupidity and classism, and ignorant of forensic tools like handwriting analysis (not to mention the scientific method), keep missing the obvious solution. A fictional young female cop (Anjana Vasan) is the stand-in for the 21st century audience and can see what her superiors miss. Once it’s revealed who is really sending the letters, Wicked Little Letters finishes a little too slowly.

But we get to enjoy a charismatic performance by Jessie Buckley, deploying a deliciously crooked grin as she brings a devil-may-care woman to life. Buckley is so good as troubled characters (Beast, Wild Rose, The Lost Daughter, Women Talking), and it’s great to see her letting loose as a fun-loving character.

Olivia Colman, of course, is superb as Edith, a woman who is not nealy as one-dimensional as she first appears. The great actor Timothy Spall (who has lost a reported 100 pounds over the past several years) has fun with a character who has no nuance whatsoever, unless you count varying shades of bigotry and entitlement.

I caught Wicked Little Letters very late in its its theatrical run and I expect that it will be leaving theaters soon; I’ll let you know when it is available to watch at home.

EMPIRE OF LIGHT: a woman, revealed

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Olivia Colman in EMPIRE OF LIGHT. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

The marvelous Empire of Light is a lot of things, but primarily a showcase for the genius of Olivia Colman. Colman plays Hilary, who lives in a British seaside resort town and works in an ornate British movie palace that is, in 1979, showing its age. She’s not the theater manager (who is male, of course), but she’s the person who runs the staff and makes everything operate.

Hilary seems to live a solitary life outside the theater, but she’s socially confident enough to dine alone in restaurants and to enjoy a social dance class. A young man, of African ancestry, takes an entry level job at the theater, and Hilary is drawn to his sensitivity, intellect and aspirations. The two connect, but their journey together faces difficulties.

There is Hilary’s mental health, for starters. Although, she is the solid presence that holds the theater together, it develops that she is on the rebound from a breakdown. She is taking lithium, for what would have been known in 1980 as a manic depressive disorder. She has been prescribed lithium for a reason – and when she feels good enough to stop taking it, there are consequences. It is later revealed that she, deep down, rages against her mistreatment by male authority figures in her life.

So, in Empire of Light, we have a middle-aged woman and a young man, the topics of mental illness and race relations in the UK during the skinhead revival and ascendency of Thatcherism. And it’s all set in a cinema, which allows director Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins and the audience to revel in their and our love of cinema. I loved the cinema’s marquee, which both marks the timeframe and celebrates the wonderful movies of the era: All That Jazz, The Blues Brothers, Gregory’s Girl, Raging Bull, Chariots of Fire, Being There.

As much as I loved and admired Empire of Light, the critical reception has been mixed (ranging between love and loathe), resulting in a middling Metacritic score of 54. Some critics whom I respect panned Empire of Light as a scattered misfire (although uniformly praising Colman). However, I see the multiplicity of topics as reflecting the complexity of life, not a lack of focus.

Sam Mendes has directed a slew of excellent films since winning an Oscar for American Beauty. This is his only second screenplay (the other was 1917). Here, his writing is a strength. The Wife appreciated the subtle signs of Hilary’s decompensation (lipstick on her teeth, an incompletely buttoned dress). We’re cringing, waiting for Hilary to melt down at the most public moment, but Mendes saves the real explosion for later, protecting her from total humiliation. The movie’s ending is sentimental without a hint of corniness.

Micheal Ward and Olivia Colman in EMPIRE OF LIGHT. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

We live in an age of great screen screen actresses, but I can’t see anyone other than Olivia Colman or Michelle Williams play this role with as much authenticity and emotional power. Colamn, with the greatest subtlety, takes Hilary through moments of tenderness, apprehension, joy, being degraded, exuding dignity, all ranging between command and decompensation. A scene where there is banging at her apartment door is especially heartbreaking. Somehow, Colman was not nominated for an Academy Award for this performance, surely among the five best in 2022.

Toby Jones has a scene, sitting on exterior stairs with Olivia Colman, that is extraordinary – a moment of regret when he stuns himself by reflecting on the cause of a relationship breach.

Micheal Ward is solid and credible as Stephen, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too. Colin Firth is a clump of humorless and pompous entitlement, an exile from the Mad Men era. Tom Brookes is especially memorable as theater worker Neil, whom we initially see for his lively and offbeat humor. Then we pick up that Neil doesn’t miss anything, and Neil’s uncommon decency and sensitivity is finally revealed.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins, having been nominated for fourteen Oscars and won twice, makes the most of the aging, once grand cinema and the sunsets and fireworks of the Margate coast. He’s earned another Oscar nod for Empire of Light.

Life is complicated, and sometimes art is complicated, too. Empire of Light is one of the best movies of 2022.

THE LOST DAUGHTER: maddening mothering

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Photo caption: Olivia Colman in THE LOST DAUGHTER. Courtesy of Netflix.

The Lost Daughter is a dark thinkpiece about the impact of maternal obligation to a talented and ambitious woman. We meet Leda (Olivia Colman), a middle-aged comparative literature professor as she arrives for a vacation at a Greek beach. Leda is comfortable traveling alone, and decidedly not sociable.

Leda’s tranquility is harshly disrupted when a large, rambunctious family spills onto the beach from a nearby rental villa, shepherded by their force of nature alpha female Callie (Dagmara Dominczyk). This crowd is a course, vulgar and shady family of Greek-Americans from Queens. Leda is resentful, but she is also intrigued by Nina (Dakota Johnson), a young mother who is unhappily exhausted by parenting her little girl.

When Callie makes neighborly chitchat, Leda pointedly says to Nina, “Kids are a crushing responsibility“. When Leda takes an action that is inexplicable and troubling, we start wondering, “what is going on with her?”. Thereby launches a slow burn exploration of how custodial parents, trapped by their responsibility to always be “on the job” without respite or support, can become drained, depressed, even maddened.

We see flashbacks of a young Leda (Jessie Buckley), a promising scholar on the verge of emerging as a major thought leader, getting whipsawed by her two young daughters, who are adorable yet relentlessly needy.

The young Leda meets a backpacker, who gives her an insight into obligation: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”. Then, young Leda makes a decision that has major ramifications for her career, her family and which still molds the person who is on the Greek beach today.

The Lost Daughter does not take a Hallmark card, children are such a joy view of motherhood. Parenting is complicated, and it challenges different people differently.

The actress Maggie Gyllenhaal directed (this is her debut) and adapted the screenplay from the novel by Elena Ferrante.

Olivia Colman in THE LOST DAUGHTER. Courtesy of Netflix.

Olivia Colman is brilliant as Leda – so contained and self-confident yet utterly unpredictable. You just gotta keep watching this seemingly staid woman and see how she is going to surprise us next. Colman has earned a best actress Oscar nomination for this performance..

Olivia Colman is now 48, but I didn’t appreciate her until the 2013-17 series Broadchurch. Since 2018, she’s compiled an astonishing body of work – winning the Best Actress Oscar for The Favourite, being Oscar-nominated for The Father, and wining the best actress Emmy for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown.

Jessie Buckley in THE LOST DAUGHTER. Courtesy of Netflix.

Jessie Buckley, one of my favorites since her debut in the psychological thriller Beast, has earned a best supporting actress nomination.

Ed Harris and Peter Sarsgaard (Gyllenhaal’s real-life hubbie) are excellent in minor supporting roles.

The Lost Daughter is a thinker with two superb performances, but it may be too dark and unsettling for many audiences. The Lost Daughter is streaming on Netflix.

THE FATHER: as reality shifts

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Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins in THE FATHER

Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman deliver heartbreaking performances in The Father, an unsettling exploration of memory loss.

As we meet the elderly Anthony (Hopkins), he is insisting on independence that he can no longer sustain. That makes it hard on his daughter Anne (Colman), who is trying to keep him safe and healthy, despite his resistance. But Anthony is losing his memory and becoming ever more suspicious. Soon, all the characters are experiencing disorentation, even fantasies and hallucinations.

The Father is the directing debut for Florian Zeller, who wrote the original play. Along with the superb acting, the key to The Father is Zeller’s ever shifting of reality as understood by the characters and by the audience. As we think we understand what is going on and then have it unraveled, we, like Anthony, lose confidence in our orientation.

Anthony Hopkins has an Oscar and a long list of great performances (The Silence of the Lambs, The Remains of the Day, Nixon, The Human Stain, The Two Popes), but none is better than this one. His Anthony is a man whose characteristic wilfulness is finally self-defeating; he is a man ever confident of his opinions, but the factual basis for those opinions is eroding. He is a man who firmly believes he is always right, facing a new reality in which he demonstrably is not.

Colman is also superb as the able and devoted daughter who is hurt by her father’s perception that she is betraying him. The rest of cast – Rufus Sewell, Imogen Poots, Mark Gattis and Olivia Williams – is impeccable.

The Father, which I saw while covering the virtual Mill Valley Film Festival in October, will be widely available to stream on Friday. It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2020. It has earned six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and acting recognition for Hopkins and Colman.

THE FATHER: as reality shifts

by
Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins in THE FATHER

Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman deliver heartbreaking performances in The Father, an unsettling exploration of memory loss.

As we meet the elderly Anthony (Hopkins), he is insisting on independence that he can no longer sustain. That makes it hard on his daughter Anne (Colman), who is trying to keep him safe and healthy, despite his resistance. But Anthony is losing his memory and becoming ever more suspicious. Soon, all the characters are experiencing disorentation, even fantasies and hallucinations.

The Father is the directing debut for Florian Zeller, who wrote the original play. Along with the superb acting, the key to The Father is Zeller’s ever shifting of reality as understood by the characters and by the audience. As we think we understand what is going on and then have it unraveled, we, like Anthony, lose confidence in our orientation.

Anthony Hopkins has an Oscar and a long list of great performances (The Silence of the Lambs, The Remains of the Day, Nixon, The Human Stain, The Two Popes), but none is better than this one. His Anthony is a man whose characteristic wilfulness is finally self-defeating; he is a man ever confident of his opinions, but the factual basis for those opinions is eroding. He is a man who firmly believes he is always right, facing a new reality in which he demonstrably is not.

Colman is also superb as the able and devoted daughter who is hurt by her father’s perception that she is betraying him. The rest of cast – Rufus Sewell, Imogen Poots, Mark Gattis and Olivia Williams – is impeccable.

The Father, which I saw while covering the virtual Mill Valley Film Festival in October, had been set for a December release, but Sony Pictures Classics has now scheduled a February 26 release. Nevertheless, it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2020.

THE FAVOURITE: sex, intrigue and 3 great actresses in a misfire

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Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman in THE FAVOURITE

Great performances by three great actresses, sex and political intrigue were not enough; the critically praised The Favourite, didn’t work for me. The Favourite is director Yorgos Lanthimos’ version of the reign of Queen Anne, the British monarch from 1705 to 1714. Anne (Olivia Colman), beleaguered by her chronic health problems and perhaps the most heartbreaking childbearing history ever, was easily manipulated by her childhood friend Sarah, Lady Churchill (Rachel Weisz), the wife of England’s greatest general. At some point, Sarah’s unfortunate relation Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives to help at the palace, and begins her own ruthless climb to supplant Sarah.

Colman (especially), Weisz and Stone are quite brilliant here. Colman captures Anne’s neediness, weakness and occasional capriciousness.

Lanthimos is a very witty filmmaker, and he specializes in absurdity, of which there are many touches in The Favourite. Of course, hereditary monarchy, which bestows absolute power upon even the most ill-equipped by the accident of birth, is inherently absurd.

With the exception of Anne’s sex life after the death of her husband, which is imagined (and could be true for all I know – there’s just no evidence for it), the story faithfully follows the arc of history.

I surmise that the problem here is that Lanthimos is too in love with his own wit, and, lingering over his own funny bits, lets the interest drain out of them. I liked his Greek indie Dogtooth, but not his more recent work, particularly The Lobster. And not The Favourite.