Green Book may be Oscar's Goldilocks option

Green Book finds itself an unlikely front-runner in this year’s Best Picture Oscar race. It’s a remarkable competition because, inasmuch as any kind of comparison is pointless, this year there isn’t an outstanding candidate. There isn’t really a film that has swept all before it in the other award competitions.

In the end if Peter Farrelly’s film does win, and it stands a good chance, it may be down to the fact that even if it’s not the best picture it’s still one that a lot of Academy voters can put on their ballot.

Although the initiative begun by Cheryl Boone Isaacs to diversify the Academy is paying dividends – more than 900 new invitees this year alone - it is still a work in progress. Even if everyone they invited accepted, the Academy would still be 69% male and 84% white; the age profile is also high. It may not be the gerontocracy it once was but the average age is still around 60.

The accepted wisdom is that there is something of a schism developing between the new membership and the old membership. The new members drive the nomination process hence films such as BlackkKlansman, The Favourite, and Roma get on the list, but the traditionalists weigh in on the final vote and therefore tend to back solid box office fare such as A Star is Born and Green Book.

It’s being suggested that while other choices are too woke (BlackKlansman, Black Panther), too odd (The Favourite), too poppy (Bohemian Rhapsody), or too political (Vice), Green Book is the Goldilocks option. It’s a good story, well told, with two cracking performances and voting also makes you feel good since it is an issue movie.

It’s a well-worn issue.  It’s 1962 and Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) is an unexpectedly unemployed nightclub bouncer and minor wiseguy who takes a job as driver and de facto bodyguard to pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali). Shirley is planning a tour through the Southern states which are rife with racism and bigotry; the title of the film comes from a travel guide for motorists of colour when driving through the South advising them where they will and won’t be welcome.

Prejudice soon rears its ugly head. As a white male of a certain age Tony doesn’t really see the issue, whereas Shirley seems to deliberately court controversy. Predictably both change for the better in a well-played, well-constructed entertainment.

The change in attitudes is just enough to convince, but even so this provides some of the film’s most uncomfortable section; the notion of a white man ‘educating’ a black man about black culture with soul music and fried chicken is heavy-handed to say the least. Shirley’s family have challenged the notion but it’s a shame that they had to; the relationship between the two men would have been just as compelling and the story would have lost none of its appeal without it.

It is to their credit that two delicately-judged performances from the two stars manage to keep the film on track.

Mahershala Ali is a class act and seems nailed on for another Oscar for his role but the real surprise is Mortensen. He has followed up his nomination for Captain Fantastic with another nuanced role which blends comedy with a degree of sensitivity. His relationship with his wife Dolores (Linda Cardellini), which blossoms under Shirley’s tutelage, is one of the high spots of the film.

Taking a break from low comedies with his brother, Peter Farrelly directs with a sense of time and place to give the feel of a good old-fashioned road movie; rather like Driving Miss Daisy (1989) in reverse. The film also looks lovely as he and cinematographer Sean Porter have constructed a colour palette of greens and earth tones which are lovely on the surface but suggest a corruption underneath.

Whether it wins the Oscar or not – and at this stage it’s anyone’s guess -   for all the faults of its genre, Green Book is well worth seeing for the performances alone.

This particular Vice is well worth trying

Pivot is a relatively new term which has entered the political lexicon; it is a modern word for a good old-fashioned change of direction. Staying with the realm of politics there are few pivots that have been quite so remarkable in career terms as that of writer-director Adam McKay.

Just over ten years ago he has known for sublime low comedies such as Anchorman (2004), Talladega Nights (2006), and Step Brothers (2008). The last film coincided with the global economic crash which looks like the straw that broke this particular cinematic camel’s back. His next film looked like more of the same; it was The Other Guys (2010) which starred Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg in a knockabout cop comedy which, literally, had a sting in the tail.

The film itself turned on some stock market shenanigans but the end title sequence was a very funny, but very bitter, polemic about the financial crash and who exactly was responsible. Will Ferrell fans were possibly not the target demographic for such a rant but McKay had put a marker down.

Since then we have seen the end of the man-child comedies and instead McKay has brought his opinions to the mainstream. With The Big Short (2015) and now Vice there is a strong case to be made for McKay as America’s most political film maker, and since his films make money and win awards the studios love him for it.

The Big Short was an Oscar-winning satire on the financial crash in which McKay took the audience on an economic roller coaster ride. It was hard hitting but the impact was somewhat softened by the use of tropes such as breaking the fourth wall repeatedly to nod and wink to the audience. Vice is a horse of a distinctly darker colour.

It is acerbic and biting and although it is not without humour the laughs are tempered by the underlying story. The film is the story of Vice-President Dick Cheney (Christian Bale, above) who for McKay is one of American history’s greatest villains. Cheney was a drunken screw-up who, thanks to a wife (Amy Adams) who would give Lady Macbeth a run for her money, took advantage of the incompetence of George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) to effectively stage a one-man coup.

Cheney learned his trade at the hands of his mentor Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carrell) and it was through his influence that he was able to limit the role of the democratically-elected Congress and Senate and boost the limits of executive power. Cheney brought imperial status to the White House and set in place a lot of systems which are still being abused today.

In the process he took his country to war, monetised the conflict, and made himself a fortune. All of this, to paraphrase Keyser Soze, without anyone being aware that he even existed.

Plainly this is a very personal film for McKay. He lines Cheney up in his cross hairs very early on and never lets him out of his sight. The film’s one fault is that it never quite delivers a kill shot but it does leave the man and his reputation mortally wounded.

As in The Big Short, McKay uses a variety of techniques to keep the audience amused as they are appalled. The fourth wall is broken again, there are scenes delivered in Shakespearean verse, there is a very amusing cameo from Alfred Molina presenting the invasion of Iraq as a series of restaurant specials, and there is McKay’s now trademark mix of found footage with his own script. Also, without giving anything away, there are two remarkable coups de cinema which just take the breath away and indicate a director at the top of his game.

Much has, quite rightly, been made of the performances in this film. Bale is excellent as Cheney and Amy Adams is suitably conniving as his wife. The one I could not take my eyes off however was Steve Carrell as Rumsfeld, this is by far the best thing he has done and his presence looms over the proceedings like Banquo at the feast. His is the hand that turns the ambitious and eager to please intern into a man who was only a heartbeat away from dictatorship.

Vice is a film which, inevitably, divides audiences. You are either with it or against it, which is Cheney’s guiding mantra anyway, but the sharpness of the script, the quality of the performances, and the skill of the direction mean that you cannot ignore it.

Mary Queen of Scots and why we need a national film industry

Mary, Queen of Scots is a film about, arguably, the most famous Scotswoman in history and her relationship with Queen Elizabeth I of England, arguably, the most famous Englishwoman in history. Mary is played by an Irish woman, Elizabeth by an Australian, the film is written by an American, directed by an English woman, and financed by a London-based company.

Let’s be clear; this is not some nationalist rant about only Scots being allowed to tell Scottish stories – that would be ludicrous. But this is a foundation story in Scottish history, yet its motives are pulled this way and that to fulfil the separate ideologies and agendas of those who are involved. The result is a film that speaks with so many voices it has no voice of its own.

There is no Scottish agency in this portrayal of one of the key figures in our history and that, alone, is surely a reason for having our own film industry. If all we want is to be content to act as a backdrop for other people’s action films, and lure tourists here because we look like a cartoon, as they did for Brave (2012), then fair enough. But what is a national film industry for if not to tell us and the world stories about who we are, how we got here, and where we go next? The story of Mary Stuart plays an important part in our concepts of our nationhood and our relationships with our neighbours, domestically and internationally. There is a fundamental lack of that sort of understanding in this film.

I get that this film provided a lot of employment for a lot of people – there are cast, crew, drivers, prop buyers, caterers and all sorts of vital trades who earned a much-needed wage from this. But it is transitory; the dogs bark and the caravan moves on as an old Arab proverb, recently quoted in Govan, would have it. The profits from the film – and there should be some given the relatively modest cost – will be repatriated to places other than here. It’s impact on the local industry is a passing fancy. It is impermanent.

Like so many other historical films these days Mary, Queen of Scots concentrates on the costumes and hairstyles at the expense of the story. There is no getting away from the fact that this is a triumph of production design but although it looks good there is not a lot to it.

The film begins with Mary (Saoirse Ronan, above far right), widowed Queen of France, returning to Scotland at the age of 19. Rather than stay in France and remarry she has come to Scotland – a country where she has spent very little time at all – to press her claim to the throne of England and Scotland, currently held by Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie, above right).

The notion of these two incredibly powerful women trying to chart their own path while respective courts of men try to manipulate them should be compelling. That it isn’t, I think, is down to the script’s failure to characterise their relationship in any depth. Screenwriter Beau Willimon (House of Cards) is happy to have Mary portrayed as a Joan of Arc type liberator with a diverse and empowered retinue, while Elizabeth is portrayed as a white-faced pantomime grotesque at odds with everyone. This does both women a disservice; their relationship was much more complex and given the volumes of correspondence between them it should not have been difficult to come up with a more nuanced view.

But this is a film of broad strokes. Almost all the men are plotting to their own ends, only her protector Bothwell (Martin Compston) appears to be on Mary’s side, initially at least. Even her husband, Darnley (Jack Lowden), is ultimately not to be trusted. And stirring the pot against her most of all is John Knox (David Tennant). Incidentally, I’m not that well up on Knox, but the ranting roaring Rasputin we have here seems a bit wide of the mark.

In the end what there is to enjoy from this film comes from the performances of the two principals. Ronan and Robbie find enough here to bring some life to their characters, even if Robbie is more plot device than credible character at times.

The key scene is the meeting between the two. It never happened but most films about Mary and Elizabeth manufacture a meeting, so it has become a Tudor trope. One of the weaknesses of Josie Rourke’s direction is her theatrical background; much of the film seems stagey but the theatricality of the meeting provides both actors with the intimacy to give us some sense of who they might have been.

In the end, as the children’s rhyme and Liz Lochhead tell us, Mary Queen of Scots got her head chopped off. The execution bookends the film and gives Ronan a striking entrance and a poignant exit; what more can an actor want.

The tragedy is that the last half of Mary’s life was much more interesting than this soap opera treatment of ‘the life and loves of Mary Stuart’. Telling that story however would require a level of understanding that seems to be beyond this film leaving us to settle for cultural appropriation on a grand and generic scale

Stan & Ollie - Laurel and Hardy deserve better than this

When I was young there were two things that were staples on the TV landscape; Laurel and Hardy comedy shorts and impressionists, usually doing impressions of Laurel or Hardy and sometimes both. Little and Large – ask your parents – pretty much made a career out of taking off Stan and Ollie.

Which brings me neatly to the crux of my antipathy towards this film; it offers no more of an insight into these two great comedians than any of those impressions. It’s two hours of Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly doing Stan and Ollie schtick, but as a film it’s puddle-deep.

If you know Laurel and Hardy, it will only make you long for their unique brand of genius; if you don’t know them – and that would be the bulk of the key movie-going demographic – you won’t be any wiser by the end.

Stan & Ollie is presented almost entirely without context. The opening preamble is a recreation of their famous dance from Way Out West (1937); it is note and step perfect but if you don’t know the film and you don’t know them then it seems a little odd. Likewise, Stan’s hospital visit to a bedridden Ollie in County Hospital (1925), recreated here as part of their stage show, is so much funnier if you understand the screen relationship between these two rather than their off-screen relationship of which we, quite rightly, knew nothing watching their films.

Their sublime moment of genius in The Music Box (1925), a film involving Stan, Ollie, a piano, and a massive flight of steps is only mentioned in passing, presumably because it would be too difficult to recreate here.

After that initial preamble and a contract row with their boss, Hal Roach (Danny Huston) though you wouldn’t know who he is from the film, we pick up our heroes in 1953 on a tour of the UK. They have been booked into second string venues by their oily promoter and are making the best of it. Stan is pinning their hopes on a version of Robin Hood which he has been writing and is keen for a British producer to finance.

As they are frustrated at every turn, they continue their death march round the country’s variety venues and the tensions in their relationship become apparent. You know however that all will be reconciled in the final reel which it duly is.

The film takes liberties with chronology. The Robin Hood film was abandoned in 1947, six years before their final tour. It also takes some cruel liberties with location – the Glasgow Empire never looked much like this.

Stan & Ollie’s saving graces come in the performances. Coogan is good as Stan with Reilly equally good as Ollie but the script only rarely allows them to be anything more than impressions. One scene in which Stan endures public humiliation in a producer’s office and another in which the boys share a bed – forerunners of those famous Morecambe and Wise skits – are frustrating glimpses of what might have been.  Likewise, Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda, who play their wives, are the funniest things in the film following their belated arrival.

Stan & Ollie isn’t a bad film, it’s just not terribly good. It’s thin, and by the numbers, and uncinematic – it feels like those ITV biopics of Cilla Black or Bobby Moore – and Laurel and Hardy deserve better than this.

It might be a good idea to give the film a miss and spend an hour on YouTube with the real thing.