Manchester by the Sea

The ultimate challenge for a filmmaker is creating a rich enough atmosphere to connect audiences with the deeper themes and emotions they are presenting on screen. From sorrow and loss to heart and love, Manchester by the Sea delves deeply into the story of a man who’s lost his way; his sense of self.  Not a single opportunity is lost in creating a rich emotional story for all audiences to get absorbed into.

Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a lonesome yet irritable man living a reserved life in Boston. He seems content living out his days completing odd jobs for cash and moping his way about the city, until news of his brother’s (Kyle Chandler) passing summons him back to his hometown to take care of his nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). This return to his past fully unearths Lee’s demons; an emotional tragedy linked to his past he has clearly been trying to forget. With Lee’s past tragedy showing itself once again, he is tested as he is forced to confront all he has tried to run away from, with relations such as his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) being shoved back into his life.

The dynamics explored between Lee and various other characters are fantastic. A man who has completely shut himself off emotionally, forced to face the realities he has been running from for so long; no doubt a big ask. Affleck nails this range perfectly, while the severity of the situation is contrasted with vibrant flashbacks to Lee’s former life, making his emotional unavailability even more jarring. Surprisingly tasked with the job of taking care of his nephew, Lee is distant and unsupportive to a teenager who doesn’t want to admit he is grieving. Tense freak-outs line their dynamic as grief displays itself in strange ways, and Affleck’s range is tested as Lee looks to battle fresh grief and old sorrow at the same time.

As a whole, this emotional atmosphere is created and maintained well. A blanket of calm seems to lay over a catastrophe of pain and loss in Lee’s life, and the audience can really feel the tension. As the severity of Lee’s personal situation begins to reveal itself, this aura increases in intensity, and by the end of the film you’d find yourself completely engaged. Affleck’s acting ability headlines the credits for this success, but merit must be given to writer/director Kenneth Lonergan who no doubt worked tirelessly and meticulously to create this rich environment on screen.

With The Oscars fast approaching, Manchester by the Sea has definitely thrown itself in the running for a plethora of awards. The rich, emotional acting across the board has not gone unnoticed, as the audience really gets pulled into the story of sorrow and grief on display. Exploring the entire range of human emotion, Manchester by the Sea is a great flick, as it easily draws in audiences and leaves them wanting more from the emotionally turbulent story.

Carol

“Just when you think you can’t get any worse, you run out of cigarettes” 

Todd Haynes has previously demonstrated his expertise with character dramas in Far from Heaven and his miniseries Mildred Pierce. Now he reunites with his I’m Not There star, Cate Blanchett in Carol, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name. 

Christmas in the early 1950s. Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), an amateur photographer, is working in Frankenberg’s department store, calm amongst the chaos of the seasonal period. Across the room, an elegant older woman, Carol (Cate Blanchett) admires a model train set. The two get chatting and she orders the trainset. After Carol ‘accidentally’ leaves her gloves behind in the store, Therese mails them off. So begins a series of rendezvous between these two women, stuck in their individual unsatisfying relationships and each looking for something more intimate. 

This really is a slow-burn character drama, which might not be to everybody’s tastes. It takes its time to build nuanced characters, although the interactions between Carol and Therese escalate into a relationship a little too quickly to be entirely believable. Phyllis Nagy’s screenplay does an excellent job of exploring sexuality beyond the confines of the labels. It’s difficult to tell exactly where the two leads each sit on the broad spectrum of sexual identity - given their unfulfilled yet notable liaisons with men - but the definitions get swept aside to focus on a multi-layered relationship between two women that aren’t sure where they’re going with their lives. 

Set in the 1950s, Carol manages to be subtle in its portrayal of the era, by which I mean it doesn’t overdo it to the point of caricature as some recent period pieces have. The film was shot on 16mm film by cinematographer Edward Lachman, and the soft, warm image with unexpectedly dull colours mirrors the tone of the film. At times Carol even takes on aspects of film noir, an effective style for both the setting and the duplicitous aspects of the story. 

Blanchett is, as usual fantastic. Carol’s dry-wit and cynicism act as a shield to the fragility that we as

an audience see in her. Her difficult husband and divorce proceedings are only part of the problem as she seems to be hiding more about herself than at first glance, which turns out to be her lack of satisfaction in life. All of this comes across with subtlety and ease thanks to Blanchett’s devoted understanding of the art. 

Rooney Mara is just as good; Therese in a similar yet different way to Carol, has a vulnerable streak to her and has an innocence that comes out through things like her photography. Although it’s more of an aside, Therese’s photographic hobby, in the way that it’s developed (pun not intended) felt like a nod to the naval-gazing characters of French new wave films. Carol could have so easily become a melodrama, but - aside from one scene - it manages to stay grounded thanks largely to the two lead performances. 

Todd Haynes has developed another detailed character drama with Carol, thanks to a great screenplay and brilliant performances. However as I said it is very much a slow-burn film and for quite a while I lost focus. I feel that I’ll need to see this again to really pick up on the details.

The Wolf of Wall Street

Leonardo DiCaprio seems to be drawn to movies about excess. And excess is the name of the game in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) begins his career working for the shady Mark Hanna (Mathew McConaughey). Belfort loses his job after the firm he works at fails on Black Monday (which is something I'm guessing people in economics will know about). His wife Teresa (Cristin Milioti) encourages him to get a job at boiler room outfit that sells penny stocks, run by Dwayne (Spike Jonze). Once Belfort realises that he can make a higher commission selling these stocks, he begins to accrue wealth and begins a company with Donny Azoff (Jonah Hill), where the two embark on a lifestyle of excess and debauchery. This behaviour grabs the attention of FBI Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler), who begins to investigate him for a number of financial frauds.

The film is fantastically hilarious from beginning to end. Leo once again proves he is one of the greatest actors of his generation and that he can also be comedic. The film runs for 179 minutes and by the end I did start to feel the effects of that length of time. Although it's a gripping film, I felt as though it ran twenty minutes too long.

Leo's performance is fantastic and he has a great chemistry with the rest of the cast, especially Margot Robbie, who plays his second wife, and Rob Reiner, who plays his father. Robbie is insanely good in this film and I can't imagine how hard it is for an Aussie to pull of a Long Island accent like that or for such a long time.

Jonah Hill also shows that he has game as a serious actor. I know he's been trying for a while and he really breaks through with this film, whilst still drawing on his talents as a comedian. Jon Bernthal is someone who I've had a hard time getting behind (mainly for his role of Shane on The Walking Dead), but his talent playing for playing the scumbag is well utilised in this film. Also the Spike Jonze cameo just made me laugh.

Verdict: Martin Scorsese crafts a wonderful piece of art about the excesses of the Wall Street rich whilst being devilishly funny and accurate. Bonus points for the hilarious joke about cerebral palsy (which I laughed at harder than anyone in the cinema).

Zero Dark Thirty

First off, this is not a propaganda movie for the US, glorifying their operation to kill Osama bin Laden. It does tell the story, but it also shows the pain felt by both sides and that it wasn't just some clean in and out operation.

The story picks up two years after 9/11, with a young CIA operative (Jessica Chastain) is witnessing her first interrogation of a detainee at the hands of her new colleague Dan (Jason Clarke). Her character, Maya, has just been transferred to the US embassy in Pakistan, tasked with finding information about top al-Qaeda personnel. The detainee that they are interrogating has links to Saudi terrorists. They soon trick him into divulging information about Abu Ahmed, an old acquaintance, who, through information they can piece together from other detainees, is the courier between bin Laden and Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a ranking officer within al-Qaeda.

Many years later, Maya is able to set up a meet with the detained Abu Farraj, only to find that he is hiding the existence of Ahmed, which Maya interprets as Ahmed being a person of extreme interest. Her senior officer at the embassy (Kyle Chandler), believes Maya should focusing on bringing in known terrorists and be trying to find out where the next global attack will be, so that they can protect the homeland.

Over the next couple of years a lot of things happen in Maya's life. She survives a bombing at the Islamabad Marriott Hotel, her friend Dan is reassigned to Washington and her friend and co-worker Jessica is killed in a botched attempt to try and bring in one of bin Laden's inner circle that she had been spearheading. Whilst trying to find any information on Abu Ahmed, Maya comes across an interview with a detainee who says that he personally buried the man they know as Ahmed, his real name being Habib Sayeed, all the way back in 2001. This seems to have defeated Maya, until a junior officer in her office finds information from the Moroccan intelligence community saying that that man that was buried was actually the brother of the courier. His name is Ibrihim Sayeed and they are able to trace his phone number with the help of Dan. Before Maya can go anywhere with this information, she is attacked coming out of her home by insurgents and subsequently sent back to Washington.

Once they find Sayeed, the operatives are able to trace him to a compound in Abbotabad in Pakistan. Through continued surveillance, Maya soon believes that bin Laden himself is residing within the compound. This belief is not shared by her seniors, who deliberate on the risk of sending in a team to take out the occupants. The CIA chief (James Gandolfini) soon decides that sending in a team to the compound would be beneficial, as whoever this mystery man is, it would be a good idea to take him out.

So Maya is sent to Afghanistan, where she is to oversee the mission to the compound. A SEAL team is put together and with the latest in stealth helicopter technology, they fly into Abbotabad to assault the compound. One of the helicopters loses power and crash lands within the walls of the compound. The team goes in and obliterates the three men who are in there, including Osama bin Laden, whose body they take with them. They also take any hard drives and intel that they can get their hands on. Once they are back at base, the team is welcomed with open arms by everyone, whilst Maya is left to contemplate what she is to do with her life now that her goal that she has been working on for a decade is completed.

Katheryn Bigelow has put together a movie that pulls no punches. Whilst it's hard to tell what actually happened in the events leading up to the operation at the end of the movie, most of the events revolve around real bombings and the detaining of real life individuals. The casting of the movie is amazing.  None of the actors have huge star power, so they are believable in the roles that they play. Jessica Chastain is brilliant as Maya and you can really see that following through with this mission means everything to her. Jennifer Ehle is great as Maya's friend Jessica who really wants to show her friend that she wants to do her best on this mission. Mark Strong plays Maya's boss in Washington and really wants to believe that bin Laden is in Pakistan.

I found the torture scenes at the beginning to be confronting, but that is how matters were handled and it is a brutal and honest truth. The water-boarding scenes, in particular, were pretty full on. The mission at the end is shown to be a far from clean mission, resulting in the loss of a state of the art helicopter and civilian casualties that should have been avoided.

The film opens with a black screen where we hear the various radio chatter that happen on 9/11, including one iconic 911 call from one of the towers. The film also has news footage from various attacks throughout the decade, as well as press conferences from both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. These give insight into the world that was happening around the events of the film.

Verdict: Spanning almost a decade, this film shows that the events leading up to the death of Osama bin Laden were not as easy as some might of thought. Although I was not a huge fan of The Hurt Locker, I think Katheryn Bigelow has done a much better job this time around.