It's hell at Hacksaw Ridge, and that's just the way Mel wants it

Andrew Garfield in action

Mel Gibson is a great one for the mortification of the flesh, whether it’s William Wallace being eviscerated or Christ being scourged and crucified. Perhaps it’s his fundamentalist Roman Catholic upbringing, but there is no doubt that the heroes of his films pay a painful and often bloody price for their redemption.

And when it comes to storytelling Mel plainly has had more than a little of that old time religion. His latest foray behind the camera, Hacksaw Ridge, is an old fashioned war movie that benefits from directorial inventiveness and modern technology to create a film which is brutally effective in communicating the horrors of war and, by extension, the heroism of its main character.

The film combines Gibson’s two favourite themes – religion and violence – in the remarkable true story of Desmond Doss, played by Andrew Garfield, a young Seventh Day Adventist who shuns violence but wants to do his patriotic duty in World War 2. His religious convictions will not allow him to carry a weapon and Doss has to successfully petition a tribunal for the right ‘to go unarmed into the hell of combat’. Having won that right, Doss serves as a medic at the Battle of Okinawa and in one night of staggering heroism saves the lives of 75 men.

The opening scene gives us a taste of what is in store as we find ourselves in the hi-def hell of Gibson’s War in the Pacific. In real life apparently it was an outback farm but with superb production design, terrific cinematography, and judicious FX tiling it becomes a convincing killing ground. This opening is one of three lengthy combat scenes in the film and, apart from raising the bar set by Saving Private Ryan (1998) for graphic realism, they contextualise Doss’s story. Right from the start we know what is in store for him which makes us appreciate his heroism all the more. Gibson also takes the time to introduce us to the other soldiers which gives us an emotional stake that sharpens our interest in the combat scenes

It is to Gibson’s credit that the story remains true to Doss’s principles; normally in films like these there is a moment where the hero has to pick up a gun – Sergeant York (1941) comes to mind – but not here. In fact the film apparently tones down Doss’s heroics. The real story contains many more incidents and, had they included them, the result would have made Captain America look like a slacker.

As it happened I saw this film on the same day that I saw Silence (2016) and although I felt Garfield was miscast by Scorsese, he is perfect in this film and deserves his Oscar nomination. He brings an inner steel to Doss’s character which allows Gibson to avoid too many clichés.

The performances are generally very good, especially Hugo Weaving as Doss’s father, himself a veteran of the First War. To be fair his intervention in his son’s tribunal is one of the film’s cheesier missteps but Weaving brings depth to what could have been a caricature. Similarly Vince Vaughan, for whom I’ve not had much time as a leading man, suggests he may have a future as a character actor.

In the end, the success of Hacksaw Ridge is down to the conviction and commitment of both Garfield and Gibson. There’s an old screenwriting maxim which says that action defines character and that’s exactly what Gibson and Garfield do here and the results are surprisingly effective.

Oh, Jackie...

Natalie Portman in Jackie

If I may be allowed to namedrop for a moment I once interviewed Gary Oldman when he was in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and the conversation turned, as it did in almost every interview he did for the movie, about the make-up that was required to make him look like a 400-year-old man.

It did awful things to his skin apparently with terrible rashes and his eyes were constantly sore from the hard, coloured contact lenses he was required to wear. But there was one constant that he kept in mind through all this. ‘It’s really important to make sure that you wear the make-up and that the make-up doesn’t wear you’.

And that, by a circuitous route, is what’s wrong with Jackie. This is a film about Jacqueline Kennedy, played by Natalie Portman, in those days towards the end of November 1963 between the assassination of her husband, US President John F Kennedy, and his funeral. It was a time when Mrs Kennedy became tragically iconic because of the outfit she wore on the ill-fated motorcade and afterwards. It was a pink Chanel suit and she became forever identified with it.

Much of Jackie is about that suit, especially in its blood-spattered phase, but the problem is that, to go back to Gary Oldman, the suit wears Portman and not the other way round. This film, by Chilean director Pablo Larrain, is an homage not to Jacqueline Bouvier, or Jackie Kennedy, or Jacqueline Onassis. It’s really all about that suit in a series of scenes that almost fetishize its significance.

It’s not a film about a person, it’s a film about a media construct. Portman forsakes characterisation for impersonation. She holds herself still and inert – like FLOTUS Barbie – and gets the accent spot on, including that fetching little speech impediment. But so much effort goes into the physicality and vocality of the role there is no room for performance. Portman isn’t a character but a simulacrum of a tragic figure.

Larrain constructs his film like a series of tableaux vivants around key scenes in Dallas and its aftermath. None of this makes for very smooth viewing.

Jackie’s painfully awkward telecast in which she invites the American public on a tour of the White House is reconstructed in all of its cringe-making detail. It’s hard to bear in mind that these are the first steps along the road that ultimately gave us the ultimate media-savvy power couple in the Obamas.

But the strangest aspect of the film is a clunky framing device in which a journalist (Billy Crudup) interviews the former First Lady about the great events. Presumably Crudup is supposed to be Theodore White who was apparently JFK’s favourite journalist, but not even someone as familiar as White may have been would have turned up to interview the First Widow looking like he’d come from an all-night lock-in? The dialogue in these scenes is unbelievably literal and it makes painful watching.

There’s a relatively stellar supporting cast and the cinematography by Stephane Fontaine is excellent. But, no matter how beautifully the film is shot, each immaculately composed frame takes you further and further away from any sense of understanding this enormously complicated woman.

Manchester by the Sea is simply magnificent

Casey Affleck

In Manchester by the Sea, Casey Affleck plays a man called Lee Chandler, although he is usually referred to – and normally behind his back – as ‘the Lee Chandler’. He is, it has to be said, a man with deep and serious issues.

We meet him first in the deadest of dead end jobs as a janitor in a low-rent housing complex. He can barely be civil to his tenants and eventually the anger erupts. Lee is a powder keg of rage with the shortest of fuses. However when his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies suddenly Lee is called back to the family home in the titular town. Joe’s death was not unexpected so he has made some provision, chief among them being that Lee should look after his teenage son Patrick (Lance Hedges).

It may be that Joe was well aware of Lee’s issues and left him in charge of Patrick in the hope of enabling him to deal with them. But everyone, Lee included, knows that makes no sense, and the film rather revels in that. One of the surprises of the film up to this point is how light it has been given the subject matter. Lonergan is a gifted comic writer – he wrote Analyse This (1999) – and the lightness of touch amid the scenes of grief make the whole experience more credible.

However in the moment where Lee sits down to decide whether he is going to accept his brother’s wishes, the film takes a turn. We discover just why he is known as ‘the Lee Chander’ in a sequence of devastating emotional power; a scene so raw and painful it’s like sandpaper being rubbed on a nerve.

Suddenly Affleck’s characterisation makes sense; everything clicks into place in a performance of superb self-control and restraint. Lee doesn’t just have anger issues; he is in the deepest circle of his own private hell, the one reserved for those who have committed the most unforgivable sins. Ironically there are those who are prepared to forgive him but he is not among them.

It is to Lonergan’s credit that he is able to handle this big reveal without derailing the film. Lee and Patrick find themselves in the worst places of their life and the scary thing is that they are each other’s best chance of redemption. Bravely Lonergan focuses on the humour, albeit humour of the darkest shade of black, to keep the film going. The ongoing debate about where Joe should be buried, for example, is just an elongated double act.

Lonergan’s screenplay is tone-perfect and the performances throughout are faultless. Casey Affleck is simply magnificent; you don’t feel sorry for Lee for his faults, you are just astonished that he manages to bear the burden of his anguish on a daily basis. Affleck never once begs for the audience’s sympathy, he doesn’t allow himself a single unearned emotion in this film. It is, for me, one of the great performances of 21^st century American cinema.

He is not alone. Lance Hedges is excellent as young Patrick, while Kyle Chandler and Michelle Williams are remarkably effective with limited screen time.

I confess that I have always been fonder of Kenneth Lonergan as a writer than a director. I like his screenplays for Analyse This and Gangs of New York (2002), however his two previous films as writer-director, You Can Count on Me (2000) and Margaret (2011) left me rather cold.

Death or the prospect of it rather haunted those two films but with Manchester by the Sea, the grim reaper comes front and centre as Lonergan embraces mortality and its consequences. But he does so with humanity and optimism to create a film about grief and grieving which, especially in the last two scenes, finds a haunting beauty in our ability to survive and move on.