James Gray brilliantly recreates New York in the 1920’s with this tale of a Polish immigrant arriving at Ellis Island with her sister only to get embroiled in prostitution as she tries to raise the money to release her sister who is being detained on the island due to illness.
Brought up in Queens, New York, Gray locates this film in his beloved city. He is clearly influenced by Francis Ford Coppola and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America as far as the film-making techniques go; a brown hue permeates the film that is reminiscent of The Godfather and American films of the seventies. This is made possible by the sepia tones of Darius Khondji’s delicious cinematography.
Marion Cotillard is Ewa, the immigrant of the title and she cements her status as one of the finest screen actors working today. The sign of a great actor is the capability to project emotions with a look and she does this wonderfully.
Gray is an arthouse director with European sensibilities. His films tend to be downbeat and deal with the darker aspects of life, the complicated relationships between characters; they are not to everyone’s taste but nevertheless have artistic merit.
Joaquin Phoenix is Bruno Weiss, Ewa’s twisted guardian angel, who cajoles her into the grim world of prostitution but strangely finds himself conflicted as he falls in love with her; another stellar performance from Phoenix in an already impressive canon. Jeremy Renner is on romantic duties as Bruno’s cousin who falls for Ewa. Excellent performances all round.
This is a world of struggle and challenges for all the characters and all the creatives commit fully to tell this bleak tale of survival and the incredible fortitude of the human spirit.
This is a prime example of a Hollywood action film; big star, big budget, Hollywood director, Doug Liman, great writers-Christopher McQuarrie, Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, yet it still manages to fail as a decent film.
C.G.I. and actors or C.G.I. actors.
People talk about the fear of not needing actors in the not-too-distant future, as they will be digitally recreated and replaced, well, Tom Cruise is that in real life; a digital, computer generation, Soul-less, although not in a ‘he sold his sold to L. Ron’ or anything so philosophically placed or even anything that could be seen as an inherent evil, devoid of morality, more in the sense of a computer generated character that is not that well-realised, a bot, without the capacity to really feel human emotions or at least re-enact them in an honest, truthful, vulnerable way.
This is my problem with the Cruise-ster, it is that he hides.
Any great actor has the ability to portray real human emotion and to do this usually needs to tap into something truthful within themselves; the greats effortlessly allow the audience into their souls. A computer generated character has no soul and thus, can-not truly replicate the essence of this.
That is why I have a problem with T.C.. He hides.
The one time he truly opened up was for Paul Thomas Anderson and he was lauded for his performance and then on to the next one……back to basics.
There is always a wall surrounding him on screen and that, is not interesting to watch, in order to compensate he surrounds himself with actors of great depth and acclaim as if this will give him kudos by association. The robotic facial and body movement indicating sadness, joy, pain etc is just not believable, but look, there’s an actor of depth to offset the vacuity of the robot, and look at these effects/stunts/dramatics, they are bigger than the star, so enjoy and be stultified into ignorance and the usual opiated state. “Wow, that was a big film”. It will make a lot of money, it is a business after all and if you get a nod from the critics, then cool, but that is NOT why most of the industry are there. Dolla, dolla bill, yo.
So, I get it. It’s just a shame more people aren’t aware of the wool being pulled over the eyes of the consumer. The spectacular spectacle. Blinded by the lights. The ultimate magician’s mis-direct. Give the people what they think they want and they will come in masses and give over their hard earned monies to be part of it.
I get it, I just don’t like it and for years now I have shirked the Hollywood system, as much as I can. Hey, I love a big budget blockbuster when they’re done well as much as the next viewer, but do most of them have to be dumb? Apparently so.
I started hearing “I don’t want to have to think, I just want to be entertained” around the time that reality tv started kicking off and my question was always “what’s wrong with something that makes you think?”
Hell, you can be entertained and think at the same time, look at The Usual Suspects, Twelve Angry Men, all smart films that were both critically and commercially successful.
I think the problem is not that the execs don’t want that, it’s more the fact that they don’t know how to get it, less confidence in the artists and more in the suits
This is a film with all flourish and no pay off. Like Inception, it purports to be something greater than it actually is. It’s basically wearing glasses to try and make itself look more intelligent, but we see through the ruse, don’t we people?
Don’t we? C’mon, join the revolution and shirk these nonsensical, charlatanical, big shiny box/small, shitty presents.
A waste of time.
On a more positive note, the best thing in it was the soldier who gets to kick T.C. when he re-awakens with an “On your feet, maggot.” Played by Terence Maynard, this was a character I would have liked to see more of. Emily Blunt is rooted in her realty and is believable. Brendan Gleeson is getting paid to using his phone, Bill Paxton is also on the phone. The premise is great but the narrative is very messy at times, we’re just expected to be on board, well, I’m hitting the emergency stop. No more……..no more.
the movie musings 