Anonymous (2011, U.S.)

Wow. I am so glad that this film was finally released near me, because I loved it. It was absolutely absorbing from the first second, as we follow an actor who's running late into the play he's introducing. (That actor, incidentally, is Derek Jacobi, who I later found out from reading Bill Bryson's biography of Shakespeare is a very strong believer in the Shakespeare-didn't-write-Shakespeare school. He must have been thrilled to get this role!) Basically the story goes that the Earl of Oxford wanted his plays performed to influence the political climate, but he didn't want his name attached to them. He tried to get Ben Jonson to put his name to them, but Jonson didn't want to. Somehow Shakespeare, who is an absolutely ridiculous, full of himself, almost air-headed actor, ends up having the plays attributed to him.

I don't know if I have ever seen a more convincing alternate history. All of the "evidence" seemed entirely plausible (although how accurate it was and what was excluded for convenience's sake, I can't say). The plot lines that involved the queen having illegitimate babies without anyone knowing seemed a bit of a stretch, but once the babies were men it worked a lot better. Anyway, for the most part the plot was fascinating, and I liked how they framed the story as a play in modern New York. (It was especially neat at the end, when during the credits the screen shows the audience filing out of the theater, just as the audience in the movie theater was doing. Weird but cool!)

I can't say enough about this cast. Really, wow. A majority of the cast was composed of people who are good, strong actors (mostly British) who I am familiar with but who the average movie-goer wouldn't necessarily recognize. All of the young earls— Southampton (Xavier Samuel), Essex (Sam Reid), and young Oxford (Jamie Campbell Bower)—were so convincing as these godlike golden boys, beautiful warriors, sons of privilege. I was especially enraptured with Bower's performance. His range of emotion was really powerful. Of course, the two women who played Elizabeth, Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson, were perfectly cast. (Has Redgrave ever played the queen before? She was great! It was weird to see Richardson as Elizabeth when I was first introduced to her as Catherine Parr in The Tudors.) David Thewlis and Edward Hogg as the Cecil men, elder and younger, were sharp and conniving, very snake-like. Sebastian Armesto was a serious Ben Jonson, passionate about his work, with dark eyes that looked like they'd been strained by candlelight one too many times. Rafe Spall as Shakespeare... I don't know what to say. He was definitely the comic relief. So funny, so self-centered, so obviously not a writer. He was good. Even with all of this fabulous talent, the real star of the show was Rhys Ifans. I have seen him in many different things (Rancid Aluminum, Vanity Fair, Enduring Love, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Deathly Hallows) and I'm always impressed by his range and skill. Enduring Love is an especially impressive performance from him. But this film might have been his best ever. I have never seen him perform such a commanding character before. I don't think it's necessarily that his acting has matured, because he's always been so good. It's more like this was the role he was always meant to play. His presence dominated every scene he was in. Amazing.

Okay, I've gone on about the cast forever, but they really were that good! Now I don't want to bore with descriptions of music and scenery and lighting and costumes, but suffice is to say that they too were simply incredible. I especially loved the panoramas of Elizabethan London, which just looked so realistic. I also had the same reaction that I had to The Conspirator—I felt like I could smell the smoke from flickering candles and smell the sewage in the gutter and taste the pints of ale in the pub. Really, really great work. One thing that bothered me about the music is that several of the period songs they used had been used before in Elizabeth, or Elizabeth: The Golden Age, or Shakespeare in Love, or some other Elizabethan drama. It's great music and it fits the time, but surely there must be more than five songs that have survived. I know, minor complaint, but when you're an avid watcher of every Elizabethan film you can get your hands on, these are the things you notice.

All in all, probably one of the best movies I've seen in ages. I would almost be tempted to give it a 5.0, except for a few plot details that didn't quite work for me. Still, as I said, it was an engaging, interesting plot with an unparalleled cast, stellar mis en scène, and fitting period music. Definitely a must for fans of the theater, Elizabethan England, and possibly Shakespeare too (unless you don't want to hear that he didn't write his work).

Rating: 4.5

Never Let Me Go (2010, UK)

I just don't even know where to start with this film. To call it "heartbreakingly beautiful" would be the understatement of the century. I'm tearing up just thinking about it. It was so wonderful that I even watched the "making of" featurette, which I don't do too often. (Ironically, the last one I watched was another British boarding school setting—Like Minds.)

The concept is similar to that of The Island, but rather than being action-packed and set in the future, it is set in a very slightly alternate past and is more psychological, reflective. Basically, a group of children (possibly clones) are brought up in boarding schools and lectured on good health and the like. At 18, they move to homes around the country before beginning the process of fulfilling their purpose, which is to donate organs to "real" people. (That is the broad concept. More specifically, the story focuses on three friends and their relationships with each other.) I thought that setting it in the past is much more effective, because it is so much more plausible. Only a slight change in medical technology, no fast cars, advanced gaming systems. Just life as we know it with a slight change. The message is subtly different from the earlier film as well. It's more about accepting fate, making the best of the time you're given, and not being afraid to love. The difference is especially apparent in the operation scenes, though you'd have to see them both to know what I mean.

The mise en scène is striking and adds a lot to the story. The colors are all muted, sometimes dreary but mostly soft. The same can be said for the sounds. There isn't too much ambient noise, just things like gentle breeze and waves, quiet birdsong, and the like. It creates a sad, almost bleak and haunting feel, sort of like a waking dream. They also used a lot images that were simple but somehow beautiful, like a lot of broken toys laid out on a table, a bird sitting on a teapot, an abandoned and rusted boat on a lonely beach, a glimpse of the crescent-shaped scar on Tommy's back. One image that especially stuck with me was the children singing their school song toward the beginning. The way it was filmed made them seem so young and innocent, and it was heartbreaking because as a viewer, you know that they're headed nowhere. The importance of art to the story, and the manifestation of Tommy's inner self in his strange, wonderful drawings also adds to the sad and dreamlike feel.

Of course, the film wouldn't have been nearly as effective without the absolutely stellar cast. I've always been a fan of Keira Knightly (Ruth). I was very impressed by Carey Mulligan (Kathy) in An Education. And I could tell from The Social Network that Andrew Garfield (Tommy) was someone to watch. But in this film, and together, they were beyond brilliant. The chemistry between all three of them was palpable. They were three friends being ripped apart by the cruel circumstances of their fate. On top of this, the first half hour or so focused on them at age 12, and the child actors they cast might as well have been the three older actors 15 years ago. They look the same, have the same vocal inflections and mannerisms. Incredible. (In the making of, I learned that they made a special effort to cast kids who looked the same, and that their adult counterparts read through scenes with them and coached them as to how they would act. Very effective.) Toward the end, there's a shot of Kathy (Carey Mulligan's character) in a car, and for a second I actually thought they had flashed back in time and it was her 12-year-old self. That's how close they were. The adult actors also had to age from 18 to 28, and for Donors that can be a long and hard 10 years. The actors were fantastic in acting the emotional and physical changes of those 10 years, and the hair/makeup/costuming/whoever department did a fantastic job as well. Of all the actors, however, I just can't say enough about Andrew Garfield. His character is very complex, a big-hearted boy who has fits of rage, is nervously shy around other people and yet the object of two girls' affections, quiet and wise. He acts all these things to perfection. The most powerful scene in the entire film is one of him screaming in anguish and rage (which strikingly and powerfully echoes a similar scene that his childhood counterpart had) that goes beyond heart-wrenching to gut-wrenching. The overall film gave me the feeling that my heart was breaking into a million pieces, but this scene of Garfield's was especially powerful and moving. I won't lie, it made me sob. And sob. And sob. Truly magnificent and intense, a distillation of the feel of the rest of the film.

The score for this film was perfect. So perfect and so beautiful that the credits hadn't finished rolling but 5 minutes ago before I was on iTunes downloading it. I hate to pull out that old favorite phrase of mine, but the score really was heartbreakingly beautiful. It's hard to explain, but the feeling I get from listening to it is like the stream of time is slowly, inexorably flowing by the characters and there's nothing they can do to stop it but capture a few moments of love and beauty. Imagine that in musical form, and that's Rachel Portman's stunning score. I also mentioned the children singing the school song earlier, but one additional piece of music that really made the movie was a cassette that young Tommy gave to young Kathy with the song "Never Let Me Go" on it. She listens to it as a young woman and as an adult (and presumably quite often in the interim), and both the young actress and the older one have a wealth of emotions flitting over their faces as they listen to it. The song is perfect of the film, and the way it was used was even more perfect. I really just can't say enough about the music. (Or the acting, or the mise en scène, or the writing, etc. etc. etc.)

I loved the whole thing. Kathy's final words are a perfect, haunting conclusion: "All of us complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through. Or feel we've had enough time." I can't wait to watch this again or to read the book. Definitely planning to do both. *edit: It's tomorrow, and I just watched it again before I had to return it to the library. It was just as good the second time, and I really just want to watch it again now. This film is one that will be stuck with me for ages, I think. I've used these words several times before, but I'll say it again: very haunting, very powerful, very beautiful, very heartbreaking.*

Rating: 5.0

Inglourious Basterds (2009, U.S.)

What a bizarre film. A French Jewish girl whose family was murdered by Nazis grows up to own a theater where a group of the highest echelon of Nazis is going to the premier of a propaganda film. Meanwhile, a group of Jewish American soldiers is running around sniping Nazi officers. There's also a German actress spying for the Allies. All of these people bump together in a giant plot to assassinate the Nazi high command.

I guess the point here was to have an alternate history, and it was almost believable. However, I have never seen so much over-acting in my life. Again, this is probably what they were going for, but it was just hard to take these people seriously when they were caricatures of characters.

On the bright side, there was not an overwhelming, nauseating amount of violence, which you would expect from Tarantino.

Still, the best I can say for it was that it was okay.

Rating: 3.0