Tag Archives: Charlotte Le Bon

Sundance 2022: Fresh

Noa is a single woman of the 21st century, which more or less means she’s well-versed in the horrors of searching for one’s soul mate on dating apps.

Steve (Sebastian Stan) is a nice surprise, and a breath of fresh air. Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) meets him the old-fashioned way, in the produce section of the grocery store. Lucky for him, his awkwardness is of the cute variety, the kind that women fall for after they’ve been through a series of jerks and losers. But Steve is more than just a fruit flirt. He is the proverbial ice berg, and Noa’s about to discover all that lies beneath during an impromptu weekend road trip, that famous first trip together upon which all fledgling couples test their compatibility. But Noa is in no way prepared for Steve’s big secret, or his eclectic tastes.

I won’t say much more since this movie deserves to be seen without preconception. It’s wild, but it’s most wild in its banality. Sebastian Stan plays devilishly against-type and it’s a guilty pleasure to watch him with so much glee and abandon. Daisy Edgar-Jones is awfully good too, but her character’s experience is so antithetical to Stan’s it’s almost like they’re in different movies. Joined by strong character work from Jonica T. Gibbs and Andrea Bang, it’s safe to say that sparks are going to fly – and that’s not all.

The real stand-out here is director Mimi Cave, who offers a layered composition packed with detail, showcasing her skill without taking away from the story.

Fresh has an unusual premise, but the real surprise is how much fun it is to watch. A caveat: its rather visceral turn toward horror is not for those with weak stomachs.

In The Shadow of Iris

12 Replies

She is a seductress. So when you show up to put a spare tire on her car and she spontaneously asks you for more, you say yes. Her terms: pretend to kidnap her and keep the ransom money for yourself. Her banker husband is horrid, she says. Maybe she touches you for just a little longer than necessary. Leans in so you can smell her intoxicating skin, catch a glimpse down her low-cut dress.

download-2100-low_IRI-high1 She is out to lunch with the banker. As he pays the cheque, she goes outside for a smoke. Two minutes later, she’s disappeared. The kidnap plot is in motion. A photo of her bound and gagged is texted to the distraught banker, a demand for cash is made. But something goes wrong at the drop-off: fake kidnappings are more complicated than they seem. WAY more complicated.

This french-language movie is THICK with complications. Pea soup thick. Guacamole thick. Grandma’s cankles thick. Charlotte Le Bon, Romain Duris, and Jalil Lespert all put in stunning work; they are the beating pulse of this thing. In The Shadow of Iris is rich, compelling, fertile. The pacing is brisk. Lespert, also the director, pulls great performances out of his costars, necessarily since we don’t always have time for a buffer of motivation. But it’s smart and a little out of the way – a great Netflix find, if you ask me. Sex, money, intrigue, lots of naughty lingerie: what else do you want? No really. WHAT ELSE DO YOU FRICKING WANT?

TIFF: The Promise

27 Replies

History is written by the victors. Turkey has denied – or worse, refused to acknowledge at all – the Ottoman empire’s systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians. What better way to commemorate a genocide than with a bland and basic love triangle, amirite?

I don’t want to make light of this sad historical time, but I feel like that’s what this romantic epic does. Jeez Louise I feel dirty even writing that, and yet here we are.

THE PROMISE

It’s 1914. An Armenian druggist, Michael (Oscar Isaac), gets engaged to local girl Maral in order to afford medical school. Off he goes to Constantinople where a)he promptly falls in love with the beautiful Ana (Charlotte Le Bon) who’s of course already attached to a journalist, Chris (Christian Bale) and b)Turkey starts slaughtered Armenians, forcing both Ana and Michael to run for their lives.

This is the first big Hollywood film to be made about this atrocity, and it took years to get it made. It was financed by Kirk Kerkorian, whose family survived the genocide. To get The Promise just right, he brought in powerhouse writer, Robin Swicord (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Memoirs of a Geisha) and director Terry George (Reservation Road, Hotel Rwanda) and together they managed to water down a very powerful story in order to broaden its appeal. The genocide becomes the backdrop to a love story, and not a very compelling one. Even love takes a backseat when survival is at stake. Plus, it puts the promise-03 viewer in an awkward position: in order to root for our two heroes to get together, Chris and Maral, who’ve done nothing wrong, will have to die. That seems excessive, doesn’t it?

It’s beautifully, lavishly shot, easily appreciated since the violence is somehow de-emphasized. You can almost see the compromises they’ve made – by aiming for a lower rating, they’ve effectively neutered the film. The acting, however, is its saving grace. All three put in amazing performances. Oscar Isaac has been so consistent lately, and here he even nails the accent.

Yes, it’s melodramatic. The music alone will convince you of that. But it’s a tolerable watch, and, I’d argue, an important one. Since little is known about this ugly chapter in the 20th century, our attention is overdue.

Anthropoid

20 Replies

It is all too easy to ignore atrocities that are occurring in other parts of the world. Awful things are happening right now, in Turkey and Syria and Lebanon and dozens of other countries. We rarely hear about them in our media and at least for me, it is all too easy to brush off the few stories that I do see as being just another bad thing that happened in an unstable part of the world, and then go on with my day. Anthropoid_(film)

Anthropoid is a story of one of those bad things in an unstable part of the world, and seeing the events on screen made me feel horribly insensitive about brushing anything off just because it happened somewhere else. Set in Czechoslovakia, the movie opens just after Great Britain, France and Italy stood by and watched Hitler’s Germany assimilate the Czechs, the Slovaks, and everyone else who had the misfortune of living next to those German assholes. Of course, once they took control, Hitler and crew then started rounding up and murdering people by the thousands. Overseeing the operation was Hitler’s third in command, Reinhard Heydrich. Operation Anthropoid was the displaced Czechoslovakian government’s response to the occupation: an assassination attempt on Heydrich.

Anthropoid methodically takes us through the operation from incursion to aftermath. None of it is enjoyable in the least. That is not in any way a criticism of the movie. This is a tale told well and told with respect. It is a tense affair from beginning to end, and we become sufficiently familiar with the resistance group to feel the loss every time one of them is taken down by the Nazis. There are a lot of losses in Anthropoid and taken together they are overwhelming.

thumbnail_24585 There are few illusions to be found among the resistance about walking away after the mission is over. That may be the most disheartening part of the whole affair. Everyone involved knows that assassinating Heydrich will not win the war; rather, it is a kick to the hornet’s nest that will likely escalate Germany’s killing spree. But it is all they can do and so they proceed. The resistance members’ bravery in the face of there being no winning outcome is well-portrayed. There are several memorable moments along those lines, including a nicely-played theme as one of our heroes learns to cope with the terror that all soldiers must experience.

Do not go into Anthropoid expecting to be entertained, as you will not be. And that’s okay. As a movie, Anthropoid is solid but not spectacular, but as a lesson in humility and awareness, Anthropoid is important and deserves to be watched. I am glad I saw it.