Review: THE WRETCHED

Ben goes to live with his dad while the divorce is panning out. His left arm is in a cast from a mishap and he isn't much of a fan of his circumstances but he gets a job at the family business which is not taxing so he can't really complain. Meanwhile the young rednecks next door get a special visit from the local witch of the woods and the woman turns from lumbering young parent to a forbidding siren like horror who leaves flowers wilted in her wake. Children, including her own, begin to disappear. Ben sees this and has to act but first he has to be right about it.

It's the complications that make this supernatural gaslighting tale nudge a little over the mass of off the shelf supernatural tales cramming the horror section of the VoD services. The people next door are being taken over by the witch but they also know how to appear normal when needed. Ben's broken wrist came from an impulsive theft and escape attempt so he has a history as a troubled teen which diminishes his credibility as a witness to atrocity. The more he has to report and investigate the more he has to trust an increasingly hostile field.

John-Paul Howard in the central role gives us a relatable teenager. Bright enough to understand the signs of foul play but sexually eager enough to miss sight of a trick being played on him and philosophy enough for us to see how much of a sport he is about it. This is important as while the film as a whole progresses without a great deal to offer beyond a standard genre outing without the warmth of this character we'd probably just hit pause and get back to it some time down the track if at all.

But while the stakes could be higher and the tension tighter The Wretched turns out to be a perfectly fine genre outing that will engage both the genre vets and casual tourists. Even the sequel wink at the end has just enough cleverness to it that we might not even mind if there is another one. As well there might be given the purpose-built evil figure that is flat enough to be malleable for future outings with minds as or more creative than here. Giving the dough a little extra time to rise? You could do worse.

Hired from Apple movies.

HOLIDAYS!

Yo, folkeroons of the edges of the screen, hope you are all coping with the ashen grind of the plague outside. This post is to announce that I'm putting Shadows Contacless in suspended animation for at least four and a bit weeks. Have I run out of movies to show you? Never. But as October is rapidly approaching I must attend to one of the few religious holidays in my annual calendar: 31 Nights o' Horror. (Oh, come on, you all know that friend who takes a hol every year camping (like in The Blair Witch Project), fishing (like in Jaws), caving (like in The Descent) or going to Grandad's place (like in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Well, it's just like that.

Yes, from Oct 1 to Halloween I will be watching a horror movie per night. I'll be plundering the fare on Shudder and anything even vaguely attractive on the other VoD services. That and digging my chattering teeth into some auld favourites and new players in my own collection like the 4K discs of Suspiria or US as well as the great mass of horror pieces in my greater collection.

I'm not including Shadows in this as this is a holiday and I want to relax into this fare, however nerve-wracking, without having to worry about the sensitivity, values or tolerance of anyone else at all. Some of these will probably be shared but with a very few others and I will happily take suggestions for shared screenings along the way.

Also, I'll be polling the folk in the Facebook group to see if they want it to continue after my holiday. This will require a response as I won't be putting the effort in if faced with a vacuum. So, let's see how that goes.

On a less whingey note it has been 24 weeks of lively chats with some great films and a building sense of community. This has been a great comfort to me in these bleak days of plague. The engagement alone has kept me from feeling I was doing this alone. For which, I thank each and every one of you who joined in and got stuck into some great cinema. Felt like old times.

Shadows Contactless: Friday 25 9 pm, Netflix Party: SORRY TO BOTHER YOU

Cassius is out of luck and debt ridden and stumbles one step further down towards rock bottom. So, he gets a job in a call centre selling ... whatever crap he has to. It's tough at first but the old timer next to him tells him to use his white voice. Skeptical, Cassius tries it and starts raking in the sales. Soon he gets the invite from management into the deluxe realm in the upper floors he's been noticing, with the golden elevator peopled by the ostentatiously confident. 

It's good but some things aren't.  He's made friends back in the sweatshop who are chasing industrial action and he's now on the wrong side of them. His performance artist girlfriend is getting restless, politically and romantically, and the vibe he's getting from management is getting sinister. All the while people are being invited to leave their cares at the door in a kind of industrial slavery and it's working. The most popular show on TV is called I Got the Shit Kicked Out of Me.

Boots Riley's full scale assault on contemporary exploitation, race relations, the gig economy and savage capitalism is the kind of movie that can make you laugh out loud when recalling a scene or line. It's dark and brutal but lifted at all times by a disarming comedic timing and constant wit, like Fight Club directed by Michel Gondry. At its centre, LaKeith Stanfield plays a contemporary Candide, going along with the good but never quite thinking it through. You will not expect the final act.

OK, we're changing at least for this one by going back to Netflix Party. I understand that this might lose me some regulars but I need to seriously rethink how to get us connected for shared screenings independent of platform. Meantime, here's how to get it.

You'll need to use the Chrome browser.

Find your way to Extensions (through settings) and search for Netflix Party and add it to the browser. A logo with the red letters NP will appear among the icons beside your address bar.

I will pick the movie and create a Netflix Party with a chatroom and post the link on the SHADOWS group page in Facebook. Click on that as the start time (I'll post it) approaches and you should end up in the Netflix chatroom (you will have an avatar and will be able to choose you own name for the chat). You'll notice that the movie has not started yet. 

If you don't see the chatroom and the movie starts playing you are in the wrong place. NB - you can only do this with a browser which might well mean you need to watch it on a computer. I get a laptop and connect it to my tv with an HDMI cable. This is the bit where we start losing people. You might also be able to use Chromecast (don't have that so can't try it).

When the time comes I'll start the movie and every one will see the same thing at the same time.

So, join me, won't you?

Shadows Contactless: Friday 18 September 9pm, SBS on Demand and Messenger: DELICATESSEN

 

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I've only seen this once and when it was new. It's from so long ago and there have been so many movies since that I'm struggling to recall it. Except, of course, that there are scenes and images from it that might as well be from Youtube clips they are so well shared. Delicatessen is one of the arthouse staples from the early '90s that everyone had seen. If you had a Valhalla or Astor calendar on your fridge at the time and for a decade on you would recall the word in the thick typeface under the pig. Thing is I can recall it so little that I can't remember if I enjoyed it or just said I enjoyed it. It will almost be a first viewing.

What I can say is that this is the first feature of the team Jeunet and Caro who also gave us (together or apart) The City of Lost Children and Amelie. If you know them you know the deal. They get into a look and vibe like steampunk or comic book and tell extraordinary tales, never so cute that they can't also gross you out, never so gross that they can't also filter it through humour. Mostly, they offer invention, wit, visual wonder and engagement and invite you to the party. Let's go.

Shadows Contactless: Friday 11 September 9pm: SBS on Demand + Messenger: THE UNKNOWN GIRL

 

A young doctor in her first senior job prevents a trainee from answering an after hours call at the clinic as she judges it not to be an emergency. The next day police officers arrive to request the surveillance tape from the door. It shows one of the last actions of a woman who was murdered that night as she sought refuge at the clinic. Sounds like the start of a thriller. It is, kind of. This 2016 film from les freres Dardenne concentrates on character, the character of the doctor who seeks to know the deceased woman posthumously. Still sounds like a thriller.

Well, it is and it isn't. The Dardenne brothers have for decades been serving up the grimmest of social realism for decades from their base in Belgium and here they stretch out to genre to see what they can find out about their characters. The good news is that it works. We do get a hefty load of realist gravity but we also get a kind of lightening effect from the performances and an openness to cinema beyond the indignant eye of the usual fare. It is grim but it's also entertaining.

The Dardennes always cast perfectly and they place at the centre of the intrigue the luminous and compelling Adele Haenel who keeps the centre heavy but vital. (Actually, if you like the central perofrmance of this film I'll just slyly direct you to Portrait of a Lady on Fire which you can see on Stan. It's an extraordinary two hander which topped my favourite films of last year.)

If you like your verite don't worry about the thriller aspects, they're kept in rein. If you like your thrillers, don't worry, you'll enjoy getting to know the lady in the centre of the frame.

Join me.

Shadows Contactless: Friday September 4 9pm SBS on Demand and Facebook Messenger: WADJDA

Wadjda is a schoolgirl. She wants her own bike. To do this she enters a competition that could get her there. She has to be careful about this. Her mother isn't keen for her to go riding a bike around town as one wrong prang might break the girl's hymen. Wadjda is ten years old and lives in Saudi Arabia.

You might get a couple of impressions from that description that you are in for either a grim tale of oppression or a knockabout comedy of innuendo but this is neither of those things. There is a lot to be said for the position of women in this particular society and expectations of them and Wadjda's growing awareness of the kind of hurdles she will be facing in the not too distant future. But this film does something that many of its kind don't do, it remembers she's a kid and how kids pursue their things of great import. This prevents the film from preaching or being too sentimental and I can safely promise that you will be neither bored nor lectured and right up to the final gesture before the end credits you might well be charmed.

See you on the couch.