The Comfort of Spectres

One casualty of sorts of the sheer strength-in-depth of the films that have been released in the last couple of months is Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers – it seems to be doing solid box office considering it could be considered a slightly niche-y arthouse take on a genre movie, but when it comes to the big awards the American academy have clearly been looking elsewhere, while at the BAFTAs it seems to have been squeezed out by The Zone of Interest, amongst others. For a movie which has received such rapturous reviews, this must be just a little bit disappointing.

The film is based on a Japanese novel from the 1980s by Taichi Yamada, which has in fact already been adapted in its home country. Andrew Scott gets what feels like a rare leading role as Adam, a screenwriter living a quiet life in present-day London. He seems withdrawn and cautious of other people – when Harry (Paul Mescal), the only other person living in his apartment building (it has recently been completed), makes overtures of friendship, he rejects him.

Adam’s current project is based on memories of his own childhood, which is clearly stirring up some deep emotions for him. One day he travels out to the suburbs where he lived as a child, tracking down his old house – it seems oddly unchanged from the photo he has brought with him. Haigh’s direction is in many ways a masterclass in subtlety and understatement and his handling of what follows is superbly done – living in the house are a couple (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy), who – it gradually becomes clear – are his parents, despite the fact they are visibly rather younger than he is. Clearly Adam is revisiting his past in more ways than one.

Strangers, Yamada’s original novel, is apparently much more of a traditional genre piece, with the protagonist facing jeopardy as his relationship with the phantoms of his parents develops. All of Us Strangers modulates this somewhat, using the fantastical premise as a way of exploring different ideas. I’m really not sure how much to say without spoiling the film – this is a story of character and emotion rather than plot and incident – and I suppose there is, on some level, a built-in ambiguity about what’s actually going on in the film – are the ghostly parents objectively real on some level (has Adam physically slipped back into the past somehow?) or is it all somehow happening in his imagination?

It’s deeply ambiguous and I imagine some people who like to have the details of plots firmly bolted down may take against the film for that reason – I went to see it with my co-spousal unit, who is very much from the firmly-bolted-plot school of thought, and she said the lack of clarity as what’s actually going on impeded her enjoyment of the film to a considerable degree. Personally I thought it wasn’t that big a deal; this is a personal, introspective piece of work, with the entire film essentially reflecting Adam’s subjective perception of events. The whole issue of whether what happens is ‘real’ or not thus doesn’t really matter – as far as he’s concerned it is real, and this is all that matters.

I imagine most people will accept the premise almost without noticing it, anyway, as the performances from Scott, Foy and Bell are so immediately convincing and credible. There are a lot of heavyweight emotional issues just waiting to be stirred up in any story dealing with these kinds of themes – childhood, one’s relationship with family, loneliness, grief and closure – and the film does them justice while still maintaining a fairly light touch.

At some points in the past one could probably have argued that some elements of the film – Adam is gay and eventually begins a relationship with Harry – render it something of a niche or ghetto concern. Perhaps that isn’t the case any more – the good reviews have probably helped, and the screening I attended was what I would describe as a general audience. And it does add something to the film, I think: changes in attitudes and lifestyle do inform the story, Adam discovering that coming out to his mum’s ghost isn’t appreciably easier than doing it while she was alive. The juxtaposition made possible by the fantasy conceit of the movie really does make the social changes of the last thirty years more tangible.

This isn’t what you’d call an issue movie, though – it feels first and foremost like a piece of storytelling and nothing else. I never really know just how to praise the work of actors without running the risk of coming across as precious or pretentious – what we’re really talking about is just the production of human behaviour not rooted in objective reality, so praise is essentially just saying that they convincingly appear to be someone they’re not. Well, all four members of the cast here do that, with the addendum that they often find ways to do so which are simultaneously authentic but also surprising and moving. This is one of the strongest films, in acting terms, that I can recall. This work occurs inside a notably well-directed film which manages to combine vividly beautiful imagery with an almost impressionistic approach to space and time. Here again the question of what is real arises, as Scott drifts from one scene to the next; the thread of the story remains intact throughout, however. Haigh makes intelligent use of the soundtrack, too – possible recipients of the same kind of boost which Saltburn gave to Murder on the Dancefloor could well be Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s The Power of Love and Blur’s Death of a Party, both of which are deployed to great effect.

Quite often a film comes along that’s a critical darling and I find myself watching it and going, hmm, yes, I can see why people have enjoyed this – without feeling any particular personal connection to it. All of Us Strangers, however, did touch me; it’s a profoundly moving and consistently beautiful film about, to be honest, all the important things in life. Films like this are precious and deserve to be celebrated.

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Fairly Young Frankenstein

I was commenting to a colleague just the other day that, when it comes to the great Gothic horror novels of the 19th century, the ones which came to dominate large swathes of popular culture, we are talking about books which are largely unread (and, in the opinion of some people, largely unreadable). And yet we still know the stories, or think we do. To be fair, film-makers have been diligently trying to smuggle elements of the original novels back into films, in defiance of audience expectations, with honestly quite variable results. It’s getting to the point where you have to think quite hard about which elements of (for example) Frankenstein are original to Mary Shelley, and which were inserted into the story by James Whale, Terence Fisher, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Smight, et al.

So how do you approach a new version of Frankenstein these days? Do you go for the ultra purist approach and try to stay completely faithful to the novel, risking audience ennui and having to contend with the fact that it’s hardly structured like a modern screenplay? Or do you decide to be a bit more adventurous, running the risk of losing any trace of what makes this story distinctive in the first place?

On reflection, I would say the former is a much safer bet, but then I did watch Paul McGuigan’s Victor Frankenstein quite recently and it may have had an effect on me. Responsible for the script was Max Landis, who rose to prominence with the rather good Chronicle but has only really had his name on dud films ever since. (Am I giving away the end of this review too early? Hey ho.)

First indications that this is a slightly different take on Frankenstein come right at the start, when the film decides to eschew the traditional setting of central Europe in favour of a circus in Victorian London. Here we meet a nameless hunchback (Daniel Radcliffe), employed as a clown by the circus proprietor. Despite having no formal education or proper materials, the hunchback grows to become an awesomely talented self-taught doctor, anatomist and surgeon. No, honestly he does. The whole film is kind of predicated on this. (I did warn you.)

Well, anyway, the hunchback is in love with the circus trapeze artist (Jessica Brown Findlay), and as a result is quite upset when she falls off one night and nearly dies. However, the hunchback is able to save her with the help of a brilliant medical student who happens to be in the crowd, who goes by the name of Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy).

Frankenstein instantly spots his new friend’s potential and recruits him as an assistant, freeing him from the circus, fixing his hunch, and employing him to do various fiddly bits of stitching to help his private medical research. To make life a bit easier, Frankenstein gives him the name of his suspiciously elusive flatmate, Igor, and the duo embark on a quest to uncover the deeper mysteries of life and death…

It’s a bit difficult to know where to start with Victor Frankenstein, except to say that you have to be somewhat amused by a film which opens with the voiceover line ‘You know this story’ before going on to depart almost entirely from Mary Shelley’s actual plot. Or, to put it another way, any Frankenstein movie in which the actual animation of the creature doesn’t take place until ten minutes before the end has obviously got serious issues.

What on Earth is it about for the first hour and a half, then? Well, this being a modern movie, it doesn’t really want to saddle itself with a lot of baggage about sin and hubris and the arrogance of man trying to supplant God in the cosmos, even though this is to a large extent what Frankenstein is actually about. Instead, we get a never-knowingly-underwrought tale of the friendship between Frankenstein and Igor. It’s true that this is an aspect of the Frankenstein story which has never before been explored in detail. On the other hand, this may just be because doing a Frankenstein movie where Igor is the hero is a bafflingly stupid idea.

If nothing else it does suggest a certain familiarity with the James Whale version of Frankenstein from 1931 – although, if we’re going to be strictly accurate about this, the first time a character called Igor appears as Frankenstein’s hunchbacked assistant is in Mel Brooks’ spoof version of the story from 1974. The script seems to treat the whole Frankenstein canon as fair game, anyway, stealing bits from many different versions: Frankenstein needing someone to do the fiddly work for him comes from a couple of the Hammer movies, for example, while the fact that Victor had a brother named Henry Frankenstein is another nod to the 1931 film (in which Frankenstein’s name was changed).

When it starts trying to be its own thing, though, the film generally becomes exasperatingly odd very quickly. Landis seems to be under the impression that the key difference between Victorian London – the exact period is obscure – and the present day is that people wore big hats and cravats and long frocks. Uneducated circus folk are able to pass in high society with no difficulty at all, for instance. There’s also frequent tonal uncertainty – Frankenstein’s initial project is a homuncular beast largely made from bits of chimpanzee, and to be fair it’s an unsettling creation – until you’re reminded that Frankenstein has christened it ‘Gordon’ for no very obvious reason.

One of the main influences on this film is nothing to do with Frankenstein, anyway: Paul McGuigan was the initial director on Sherlock and this is really reminiscent of that show at its most self-consciously stylish. McAvoy’s performance is very much like Cumberbatch at his most shoutily eccentric, while possibly the best thing in the film is Andrew Scott’s performance as a police detective in pursuit of Frankenstein for his own reasons. Even Mark Gatiss turns up, although he only gets one line (you can’t help thinking that Gatiss must have a great Frankenstein adaptation in him somewhere).

I suppose I shouldn’t be too unpleasant about McAvoy, as he’s only playing the character as it was written. You can tell that, in a ‘straight’ adaptation of Frankenstein, he would probably be brilliant. The thing is that I suspect the makers of this film would argue that it is really is a ‘straight’ Frankenstein, and sincerely mean it. But it isn’t. It’s the kind of film where there’s an outbreak of slo-mo or CGI every five minutes, just to stop the audience getting bored, where all of the original ideas have been purged in favour of ‘character-based personal drama’ (i.e. soapy nonsense). The movie’s big idea is that Frankenstein created Igor every bit as much as the more famous creature – well, in this film he does, but then (as we’ve discussed) Igor is hardly a core element of the Frankenstein story, especially not as he’s presented here. So what is the point of this film? What is it actually about? Apart from a few scenes here and there, what has it honestly got to do with Mary Shelley’s story? I can see very little connection, and it’s not even imaginative or competent enough to be as much fun as some of the wackier Hammer Frankenstein sequels. A waste of talent, potential, and time.

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The Alternative to Facts

There are timely films, and there are timely films, and then there is Denial, the latest from veteran (though irregular) director Mick Jackson. It seems strange that not too long ago everyone was talking relatively casually about the fact we were all living in a post-truth world: if all I see on the news is true, then suddenly the truth is back in fashion – the problem is that everyone seems to have their own ideas about what it is, and most of those versions are not exactly mutually compatible. Jackson’s film may be an account of events from nearly 20 years ago, but that doesn’t stop it feeling very relevant, for it concerns the historic (in more ways than one) court case brought by an eminent Holocaust denier against a Jewish female historian.

The late novelist Iain Banks came up with a characteristically witty and effective way of dealing with Holocaust deniers: you invite them to debate the topic on TV with you, then punch them in the mouth in front of the cameras. But it gets even better, for when they complain and call the police, you simply deny the attack ever took place. Ah, if it were only that simple (and satisfying) – taking these people on means stepping onto a hard road fraught with risks, as the film makes clear.

Rachel Weisz plays Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of Jewish and Holocaust Studies at a university in Atlanta, Georgia, and author of a book about Holocaust denial. She has so far refused to debate with Holocaust deniers on the grounds that she does not want to give them the exposure and credibility that would result, but is nevertheless ambushed at a speaking engagement by the British historian David Irving (Timothy Spall), who accuses her of lying about and defaming him.

Irving eventually brings a libel action against Lipstadt, in a British court where the burden of proof lies with the defendant rather than the ostensibly injured party. Naturally she feels compelled to take him on, rather than settle, and to this end employs hotshot young solicitor Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott) and charismatic barrister Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) to lead her defence. But she is unprepared for some of the arcane details of the British legal system, and also the demands of the case: Irving proves an unexpectedly canny legal operator, and the apparent ruthlessness of the men on her own side is also disquieting. Will truth really be the victor here?

Well, if you don’t want to know how it all ends, don’t look on Wikipedia, that’s all I can say (or David Irving’s own more-than-slightly-appalling website, for that matter – for of course it still exists, offering unique insights into modern history, or possibly just its operator’s psyche). ‘Based on a true story’-movies are of course notorious for being just that – based on truth, nothing more than that, with events and characters being amalgamated and rearranged to suit the demands of the form. I wonder if this was a factor while Denial was in preparation, for it would be rather odd for a film which is so adamant in its insistence that truth should be held sacred and inviolable to depart too egregiously from reality itself.

And yet you could argue that’s just what has happened (and, sure enough, Irving has been claiming this himself), for Timothy Spall’s striking, mannered performance as David Irving, while as technically accomplished and memorable as we might expect from such a capable performer, does not seem to even attempt to be a representation of the man himself – one might even call it a theatrical grotesque. On the other hand, one of the themes the film returns to time after time is the need to deny credibility and plausibility to Holocaust deniers, whatever the source – a ‘balanced’ representation of the two sides of the argument would give the (entirely wrong) impression that both sides have merit. By presenting Irving as a comprehensively sinister and unpleasant individual, you could therefore probably argue that the film is similarly trying to avoid giving his views even the slightest credence. It’s just a bit odd for a film which is about the importance of historical honesty and objectivity to be quite so partial in its representation of a key figure in its story.

Still, Spall does give a very fine performance, in a film which is notably strong in this department – I was about to comment that Rachel Weisz does vanish somewhat behind the hairstyle and accent she adopts, but then again I suppose transforming yourself into another person is the essence of fine acting, and she is notably good in a challenging role. I’ve never quite seen what all the fuss is about where Andrew Scott is concerned – possibly I’ve just been put off by all the racket from the Sherlock crowd – but here he is extremely good, too. Best of all, however, is Tom Wilkinson, who more than anyone else brings the film to life and brings some genuine humanity and anger to many scenes. (Also in the cast are John Sessions, who almost appears to be turning into William Shatner as-he-is-today, and Mark Gatiss, giving an impressive and entirely, um, straight turn as a Dutch academic.)

You should never be short on drama if you do a courtroom-based story properly, and this film certainly delivers – one of the running themes is the slightly arcane nature of the British legal system, which is helpfully explained for foreign audiences. (Also, you would have thought it would be relatively easy to debunk the deniers, given the numbers of actual Holocaust survivors still around to give evidence, and yet no survivors, nor even Lipstadt herself, testified at the libel trial, and the film makes it very clear just why this was.) But while all this is certainly thrilling stuff, the film never loses track of the fact that it is primarily concerned with the most serious of issues, and there are a number of sequences and scenes which are not afraid to evoke the dreadful reality of what happened at Auschwitz and elsewhere, without ever seeming sentimental or manipulative.

Rampton’s courtroom demolition of Irving and his prejudices was so comprehensive that the film struggles to find much in the way of tension for its closing section, as the verdict is awaited, but in a way, this is beside the point. The point it makes is surely not that truth triumphed over deceit on this one occasion, but that truth, justice, and other civilised values must be protected and fought for time and time again. Also, probably, that the existence of the principle of freedom of speech does not mean that truth itself is somehow up for grabs or subject to a popular vote. As I say, a very timely film, probably, and a well-made and very well-acted one.

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The Adventure of the Three Fables

So – second series of Sherlock, eh? The obvious thing to say is that Steven Moffat didn’t do himself any favours with a first series that was so unutterably hit-the-ground-running brilliant, and – foolish boy! – has continued to make life difficult for himself by overseeing a just-as-good second run. One could grumble about the fact that, on pretty much any level you care to mention, his second pass at Sherlock totally eclipsed his second full series of Doctor Who (and come to think of it I did) but this would be a bit churlish, and I’m not the kind of person to endlessly draw fatuous parallels between either the series or the characters.

Anyway, as the ongoing adventures of a fiercely intelligent, asexual hero temporarily pause with the central character forced to fake his own death as a consequence of an unexpected rise in his profile, let’s look back at the three episodes.

Thinking about this piece, my initial response to A Scandal in Belgravia was that this was one of those practically perfect pieces of art that are actually quite difficult to review without just gushing. Then I remembered beyond all the usual Moffat verbal and narrative pyrotechnics, to the remarkable plunge into pathos and genuine emotion of the second half of the episode. The bit that sticks with me is of Benedict Cumberbatch and Mark Gatiss together outside the morgue, a brilliant written and underplayed scene, with – for me – Gatiss never better: ‘There’s a limit to how much damage you can do.’

I’m not such a dyed-in-the-wool Sherlockian as to venerate Irene Adler as much as some do (much grumbling in some circles, I understand, concerning the handling of the character in Game of Shadows), but I thought the Sherlock version was very engagingly written and played. Some elements of the plot rattled by just a bit too fast to completely keep track of but for me this remains, probably, the best episode of the six so far.

I suspect it was inevitable that Mark Gatiss would demand the rights to the Sherlock version of the most famous Conan Doyle story of them all, and The Hounds of Baskerville turned out to be very characteristic. For the first time, the series had the problem of dealing with a plot which is well known – there are people who haven’t a clue about the plots of any of the short stories in the canon, but who are familiar with the story of Hound from one of the other umpteen versions that have already been made. In some ways this was a more faithful episode than some others, in terms of character names, but more energetically free in many respects, as well as being fun and intelligent. I must confess to guessing a) the nature of the hound’s dreadful influence and b) the identity of the villain, if not his motivation, but these are fairly small quibbles.

And so to The Reichenbach Fall, waltzing delicately through the same narrative territory as Game of Shadows. Certainly Sherlock‘s enthusiastically deranged Moriarty is some considerable distance from Doyle’s character, an interesting choice given that Jared Harris’s very faithful interpretation is, if anything, just as effective. That said, Andrew Scott was terrific in the role, just as good in his own way as Harris.

This is the best thing I’ve seen from the pen of Steve Thompson, but having said that this is the kind of story I can imagine myself returning to in future and going ‘Haaaaang on a minute…’ about. Viewing it the first time, the rush and surprise of it do a very good job of papering over the holes in the narrative, but I don’t think that’ll hold up for subsequent viewings. On the other hand, the handling of Sherlock’s celebrity was intelligent and depressingly believeable.

Looking back, I enjoyed the nod to Moriarty’s stealing-the-crown-jewels caper from the 1939 Basil Rathbone movie. And, on a similar note, I wonder how many non-obsessives spotted the presence of the 92-year-old Douglas Wilmer in a cameo role, Wilmer having played Holmes for the BBC nearly 50 years ago? In itself a sobering reminder of how few notable Sherlocks of years gone by are still with us.

Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes remains a going concern, of course, but the writers really were in a corner when it came to the climax of the series. The real final problem, of course, is that everyone knows that Holmes dies at the end of the original story – but also that he rises from the dead some time later! How to achieve the proper emotional impact without killing the character off for real?

Well, they managed to come up with a suitably shocking climax, but the jury is surely still out on the manner of Holmes’s resurrection. The danger was that his death wouldn’t convince – the problem turned out to be that it was just too believable! Without even the hint of an explanation (not even the tiniest trace of a miniaturised aqualung or its equivalent), his inexplicable survival looked ominously contrived.

Still, better that than the end of what’s surely a contender for drama series of the year (and January only just half over). Given the rocketing profiles of Cumberbatch and Freeman, it’d take a brave person to predict when the series will be back, but surely no-one would not expect it to be worth the wait.

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