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hunxi-guilai · 3 years

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Hi Hunxi! I hope this doesn't come off rude, but could you talk a bit about the appeal of LYB? I've been trying to get into it and I've watched 25 eps, but it's not grabbing me and I keep stopping/wanting to quit. But with all the hype around it, I feel like I'm missing out on a lot and I really want to like it. I like all the characters! And actors! Idk, I guess I was just hoping for your thoughts so maybe I'll start to feel more for the story. Feel free to ignore this :) Have a good day!

uhhh sure anon, I can try, but I have to say if you're 25 episodes in and not feeling it, this show might just not be for you? I know I was ride-or-die by episode 8, so I can write a bit about what I love about LYB, but they might not be things that really get you going and that's 100% valid!

writing: LYB is just. insanely well-written. in terms of language, balancing humor with plot, character with theme, pacing with story. It has an understated elegance to its dialogue that still leaves room for humor and light shenaniganery; it's exceedingly well-paced and tries its level best not to cut off an episode in the middle of a conversation (it happens a few times but for the most part it doesn't!). Especially in the last few episodes of the show, there are several knock-out conversations that I have memorized almost word-for-word and still think about on a regular basis

plot: LYB is a show that you really can't half-ass your way through watching, because the plot is intricate without being convoluted, complex without being ridiculous. Its plot moves in these general arcs that balance the episodic nature of the show well with the scope of its 54-episode story, and not a single moment is wasted (which is rare. Like, I enjoyed CQL and all, but there were episodes I actively fast-forwarded because I was bored). It's just very exciting to have a show that has such deft narrative competence, where I couldn't guess what happens next but am delighted to find out

character: the characters are lovingly, painstakingly rendered; the acting is phenomenal, subtle and emotional without being overwrought. Much of the narrative hinges on the slow revelation of identities and relationships, and the way the author overlays the twisty, thorny connections of family with the fraught dynamics of court politics is absolutely exquisite. also, all the characters are so human, even the villains; no one is a cardboard cut-out of a person, everyone has depths

music: in the first D&D campaign I ever played, the DM pulled out the LYB soundtrack during the session focused on my character and I had to leave the room to collect myself because I was not prepared to be emotionally side-swiped like that

lighting: I feel like I yelled enough about the lighting in this show on my last watch-through that I had to mention it somewhere in this list. but like. some A+++ cinematography and lighting happening in this show

I could keep going, but I guess it might help to think about what had me hooked? There's the general mystery of Mei Changsu--who is he, who was he, what does he want, what is he trying to accomplish, can he accomplish it in the time he has left. Then there's a plot-level delight in each arc: what is the challenge this time, and how will our protagonists rise to solve it? Alternatively, what problems has our protagonist decided to cause, on purpose, and how will they further his mission? On a relationship level, it's fascinating to me how Mei Changsu and Xiao Jingyan's relationship develop, considering 1) all the factors stacked against them and 2) Mei Changsu's general tendency of being a lying liar who lies.

If you're 25 episodes in, you've already made it through the Worst Birthday Party Ever arc, and if you're not hooked, then this show honestly might not be for you! Because by then I was firmly in love with the drama and the relationships and the unspoken history between characters and the deep thematic preoccupation on righteousness and revenge, responsibility and justice, betrayal and trust and like. all the good narrative things I like to consume in my stories

#hope this helps anon!#other media #not me completely losing track of which inbox this ask came to

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overthinkingkdrama · 5 years

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I stumbled on a post of yours listing your favorite kdrama melos and I hadn't realized until that moment that my fav kdramas (the smiles has left your eyes, just between lovere, secret love affair my ahjusshi etc) would all be classified together as distinct from other kdramas. I'm wondering what your thoughts are about Korean melodrama as a genre that is separate and distinct from not only other kdramas but also Western melodrama.

I apologize for how long it took me to post this response. This is a really great ask, touching on one of my favorite narrative subjects, and it required a bit of mulling before I could formulate an answer.

Melodrama as a genre umbrella is broad enough to include many different types of stories beneath its label. Sometimes the term "melodrama" is used specifically to differentiate from a "romcom", or to indicate that a drama (sometimes, but not always) will steer toward a tragic rather than happy ending. Sometimes it merely means that the subject matter is going to be "heavy" and "angsty" rather than "light and fluffy". The definition of the word in English typically connotes a story that includes sensational or exaggerated characters and themes, designed to appeal to emotion. In fact, if you start trying to parse what we mean when we describe something as a "melo" it might seem so general as to be unhelpful, but I believe we can narrow it down a little more.

The term "makjang" also very often gets applied to Kdramas, sometimes interchangeably with the word melodrama or as a sort of intensifier for melodrama, which is how I frequently use it. Although I would suggest that the way we use the word in the English-speaking fandom is somewhat different from its actual connotations in Korean. If you’re interested in specifics about what that term actually means and where it comes from this is a good blog post. And I think I’ve seen a couple other good definitions floating around if you do some googling.

If you’re more familiar with American television or fairly new to Kdramas, you might compare a makjang drama to a daytime soap opera. All the secrets and betrayals and star-crossed lovers you would associate with melodramas in general, but turned all the way up to 11. The most extreme end of the meo spectrum, verging on absurdity. This is generally what the uninitiated think all Kdramas are like. I frequently have people who don’t know much about the subject refer to Kdramas as “Korean soap operas”. I dislike this characterization because a) it ignorantly and rather Eurocentrically paints all Korean television with the same broad brush, when anybody with more than a passing familiarity knows that Korean television is just as varied in quality and content as any other country’s and b) the term “soap opera” has such a specific, culturally defined, low-rent connotation that I would have a hard time applying it meaningfully to non-Western television.

Not all melodramas are makjangs. Although all makjangs will be some variety of melodrama.

Rather than overwrought, exaggerated or sensational I prefer to use the word "heightened" to describe the subjects of a melo, since the word does not imply a value judgement and I think gestures at the central element of all story—but especially melos—that makes them so appealing in the first place. The emotions are “heightened”, the personalities are “heightened”, the actions are “heightened”. Everything is just a little bigger, a little sharper, a little louder than normal. They have deeper, more broad-reaching implications. They have greater scope and thematic resonance than what we generally experience in everyday life.

Even dramas that deal with fairly quotidian subjects (such as college, family relationships, workplace stress) can either have a more grounded/realistic bent, or a more melodramatic bent. Although I would argue that story because it seeks impose order and meaning on otherwise random or meaningless events through the magic of narrative structure will, by its very nature, necessitate certain type of melodrama. That is the quality of “heightened”-ness. Without it, we don’t really have stories at all. So, in that way this is very much a continuum, and not a set of discreet genre categories

As for the second part of your question, how Korean melodrama is distinct from the Western melodrama…I may not be entirely qualified to answer it, as my perspective is that of a Western viewer who is trying to define and categorize things as a non-native speaker with a distinctly Western literary critical background. However, I will attempt to give you my best answer based on the many dozens of dramas I’ve now seen and my own readings about Korean culture.

Because the single run mini-series with an average of 16-20 episodes is currently the currency of the realm, a lot of Korean television focuses on delivering a compact story with a limited cast of characters and bringing a single story arc to a conclusion. Which is different from most American network television which basically tries to stretch out endless seasons of a show whether the story actually calls for it or not. In the West this is changing because of streaming services, which make prestige television shows more and more desirable and common, resulting in more complete stories in limited runs. And it’s also changing in Korea which has been increasingly experimenting with preproduced, longer run and multi-season dramas. (This is of course a limited view of Korean television, which also has its share of long run weekly dramas or weekenders which have a different structure altogether, but I don’t know much about those so I won’t speak to them.) We’ll have to wait and see what style of television grows and thrives in the coming years.

While Korea has indisputably experienced an Americanization of its media in the past decades, there are certain things that are unshakably culturally construed, which appear in dramas again and again up to the present day. A lot of this peculiarly Korean sensibility I think can be tied to a few factors: the influence of Confucianism, the division of North and South, the country’s history of colonization, and a uniquely Korean relationship with emotionality typified by the concepts of han and heung.

I don’t want to wade too far into waters that are too deep for my shallow understanding, but a lot of the “fodder” so to speak of Korean melodrama comes from the specific history of the peninsula. The heavy emphasis on familial (especially parent/child) relationships and the specific way in which they are handle in Korean dramas requires a basic crash course in Confucianism to grasp. The concept of “filial piety” and different types of generational guilt or generational trauma might seem alien to a Westerner. Especially a Westerner from as young a country as the United States.

Because of the concept of “filial piety” and a strong emphasis on family background and blood ties, the recurrence of plots points like birth secrets, family registry falsification, the mistreatment of orphans, adopted children or the children of criminals/murders is much more frequent in Korean melodramas than Western television and treated with different weight within in the culture, and I find this can sometimes be off-putting or confusing if you don’t understand where some of these hang-ups come from. It’s also important to remember that South Korea is a relatively young Constitutional Republic with an extremely recent and troubled political past. More recent than the Japanese Occupation which left so many scars on the collective cultural consciousness, more recent even than the Korean War and the division of North and South Korea. Also, it doesn’t hurt to recognize that, while social stratification is an issue everywhere and that there is no culture in the world that doesn’t have some kind of class system, strongly Confucianism influenced societies have engrained into their history a type of caste system that many Western viewers are completely unfamiliar with.

I’m not saying that you have to be immersed in Korean culture or history to understand and enjoy dramas, but it certainly helps to understand some of the nuances or even troubling elements that you will detect while watching. And it might be a good attitude to adopt, that if you find something off-putting or weird in a character’s reaction or the behavior of a particular group of people in a drama, to ask yourself if there is some kind of shared cultural context that you might be missing to explain the difference. A lot of what I’ve learned about Korean history and culture over the past few years has come from detecting such differences or such intellectual discomfort and doing my own research to find out why these things are coming up again and again.

Moving away from structure and even just cultural context, I do think there is something really unique in the “feel” of Korean dramas that isn’t present in other media I’ve watched. A special kind of relationship “raw” emotion that I think is integrally and inescapably Korean. I think this has to do with the concepts of jeong, han, and heung.

Jeong has to do with a sense of community and communal love, which I think might be the most “visual” of these three “indescribable” emotional concepts. You can see it in the special weight given to sharing food, or in drinking together. You can see it in the family that the neighborhood of Ssangmun-dong in Reply 1988, that creates an umbrella of bonds which extends far beyond blood relations. It’s something that generates a special kind of warmth that I look to Kdramas for specifically. Of course, when an ideal like this is damaged or missing or twisted beyond recognition it can cut deeply and leave behind irreparable scars. Which, I think, might explain why so many romantic heroes and heroines in melodramas come from places of profound social isolation (people like Moo Young in TSHLYE and Gang Do in Just Between Lovers) or from severely broken homes.

Perhaps more relevant to the discussion of melodramas in particularly, han has to do with a sort of internalized trauma, or grief that one carries with them throughout their lives. It can be a broader cultural trauma (like the societal scars left behind from the Japanese Occupation) or something more personal (Like the loss of a child or a broken relationship). I found this quote which I think explains the feeling and its relationship to Korean media well:

Long-term foreign residents here note a tendency of people to wallow in or enjoy the sadness, in an almost romantic way. There is a deep strain of melancholy in Korean culture, and this is expressed in the modern age through sad songs, films and TV dramas that offer an unrelenting stream of tragic heroes, unrequited love and bittersweet memories – most likely contributing to the appeal of Korean pop culture abroad.

[Korea: The Impossible Country’ by Daniel Tudor (2012)]

Heung is somewhat less relevant to our discussion of melodramas, although it is interesting and much more evident I think in other examples of Korean media, but it is the almost manic reaction or counterpoint to han. A sort of overflowing, irrepressible sense of pure joy. And I totally recommend you go out and read about this stuff yourself, I'm probably just slaughtering these concepts trying to summarize them in my feeble way.

It the special cocktail of all three of these "feelings" that give Korean dramas (for me, Korean melodramas in particular) that special addictive quality that made me fall so deeply in love with them. That tacit permission to feel things, to feel them deeply, even overwhelmingly and the catharsis that goes along with that. That is the special sauce, the “heightened”-ness I mentioned before that takes the mundane and makes it magical.

Sorry this got so out of hand, but I hope it was an interesting read and worth the wait. Thank you so much for the ask.

Jona

#asks #answered #melodramas #makjang #Korean dramas

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the-last-rat-standing · 5 years

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The prime problem with ‘Prime Suspect’ (US)

So I’m 8 episodes into the 13 episode (1 and only) season of the US version of ‘Prime Suspect’ and I’ve figured out the biggest problem with the show- it’s the title.

Why in the world they would saddle this show with the title of one of television’s most highly acclaimed shows is a mystery. Oh, I sort of get it- they hoped the title would bring in a built-in audience who was familiar with the British show, or at least familiar with the pedigree. But it has nothing to do with its namesake beyond the lead character’s name. Don’t get me wrong, I love Maria Bello. But she’s no Helen Mirren. And that’s a good thing. Because while the underlying theme of misogyny is the same everywhere, there’s no way you can just lift the tenets of a British show and drop them into New York and have an actress play it the same in this side of the pond as another actress did over there. So they gave her different obstacles and different quirks... but still called her Jane Timoney??

Maria Bello is the heart of the show, and rightly so, and not just because she’s the lead character. Her delivery of lines often comes across as ad-libbed, but it adds to the realism of the lines. She’s completely believable as a driven hard ass who only cares about making an arrest and closing the case, at least to those who have their boxers in a twist that a woman has broken into their little boys’ club. We, of course, see the softer moments of her tiptoeing the line between determined detective and caring daughter/sister/friend. The scene in Episode 7 where she tells the alcoholic mother about her own mother’s death was both touching and devastatingly acerbic, and handled perfectly by Bello. (I can’t help but compare it to Olivia Benson’s continued “I’m a product of rape!” and Mariska Hargitay’s overwrought delivery of that story line.)

What is really good about the show is the supporting cast. The first episode is a bit painful to watch in its obvious misogyny (not to say it doesn’t exist, but holy hell, my head hurt from getting hit with the hammer so many times), but it gets better once the writing is allowed to just tell a story, and the cast gets its feet under them. Brían F. O’Bryne is particularly good as the guy who is Jane’s strongest opponent but who also shows flashes of admiration, without it veering into happy ending territory. Kirk Avecedo is great as the no-nonsense if-she-can-do-the-job-I-don’t-care Calderon. All the men are good, to be honest, not just interacting with her, but each other. It is completely believable that they’ve all known each other for years.

The writing is good (certainly no worse than every other police drama on the major networks) and the directing/editing gives it a fresh look. My only other complaint beyond the title are the two men they’ve cast as her current and ex-boyfriend. Kenny Johnson as Matt (the current) is just... bland. I always try to look at hetero pairings and figure out what they see in each other, particularly what the woman sees in the man. (Because let’s be honest- it’s not hard to figure out what a guy sees in Maria Bello!) I just don’t get it with Matt. He’s dopey and just generic. When her ex accuses her of staying late at work to avoid having to go home, I agreed. I know they were trying to set it up like Matt was offering a family (he has a 5yr old son) and that Jane was likely trying to force herself into that role of step-mom/dutiful girlfriend, but by making Matt so bland, it didn’t make her resistance compelling. As for her ex... Peter Berg? Really? That’s the married cop who Jane slept with at risk of her reputation? Yikes. But those are small complaints, considering both characters are secondary to the rest of the show.

It doesn’t surprise me it didn’t last. First, it was on Thursday nights, against really tough competition. Then they bounced it around to another night without much notice. Then, they replaced it with The Firm, a show that was way cheaper to produce- that got cancelled after one season. Great job, NBC.

#maria bello #prime suspect

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Unsolved Mysteries Volume 2 Review: Reboot Fits a Flatfoot More Than a Bigfoot

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This Unsolved Mysteries Volume 2 review contains spoilers.

Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries Volume 2 comes back even more serious than the first volume. The theme music may have a new arrangement which forebodes horrifying tales, but the telling has become even further removed from the overwrought drama of the original series which aired from 1987 to 2010. I have to admit, I miss the cheese of the gravelly melodrama which host Robert Stack exposed from under his raincoat. The crimes are exactly as promised, they are mysterious and open. But the Netflix series is almost too forensic in its unraveling, and it doesn’t even rely too much on the science itself.

The six new episodes profile fantastically mysterious happenings and tragic events in the hope a viewer holds the key to solving the cases. Viewers have also been calling tips into the Unsolved.com website. The first volume episode investigating the death of Alonzo Brooks prompted the FBI to reevaluate the incident as a hate crime. The new version of the investigative series saw a major improvement in production quality, but at the cost of its individuality. The reenactments are back, though muted, in Volume 2. We see agents flashing badges, couples hugging each other for comfort, and footsteps over crime scenes mixed with photos from the police files. The first volume included an unlikely suicide, the multiple disappearances of people connected to crime victims and the aftermath of a UFO sighting in Berkshire County, Mass.

Directed by Don Argott, the opening episode of Unsolved Mysteries Volume 2, “Washington Insider Murder,” has everything going for it. It has a slain hero, former White House aide John ‘Jack’ Wheeler, whose commitment to service which started as a soldier in the Vietnam War, culminated in his becoming chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. It’s got a very cool and disquieting crime scene, a Delaware landfill where the very idea of obtaining forensic evidence would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. The episode has conspiracy theories, and a very sad family, Wheeler’s wife and daughter, still reeling a decade later from the loss and the uncertainty. But it never quite makes the case for drama.

Police ruled Wheeler’s death a homicide, the investigation was at a high-level. The victim worked with three presidential administrations, was a senior planner for Amtrak, and served on the Securities and Exchange Commission while hiding his own bipolar disorder. His murder remains unsolved to this day. Unsolved Mysteries follows his path through the surveillance of modern-day technology. Wheeler was spotted on security camera footage the night before he died. Investigators and family members watch as he wanders through office buildings looking uncharacteristically disheveled and agitated. Like many of the installments, the technology is not without its glitches, and most cases focus on at least one example of unaccounted time in the timeline.

Unsolved Mysteries doesn’t dwell on the systemic problems of investigations and investigative bodies. It is not concerned with righting wrongful convictions. It is about the horror stories of unanswered questions. One episode can be put off, at least partially, to a break in police procedure: a convict who slipped away through a crack in the paperwork. “Death Row Fugitive,” directed by Robert M. Wise and Clay Jeter, centers on repeat sexual offender Lester Eubanks. He confessed to killing a 14-year-old girl in Mansfield, Ohio, in the 1960s, and was sentenced to death. When the death penalty was abolished in 1972, he became part of a work program where he could leave prison grounds. He escaped in 1973, while on a temporary furlough to go Christmas shopping.

The twist in this case is that, twenty years after the escape, an investigator just happens to look up the old case to see if there’s an update and finds the crime archives have nothing in them. The files were never fully processed. He makes up for lost time, getting the case on America’s Most Wanted, but after so much time, the trail is cold and the episode is merely tepid.

The saddest case may be “Stolen Kids,” directed by Jessica Dimmock. Two-year-old Christopher Dansby was snatched from Martin Luther King, Jr. park on Lenox Avenue in Harlem on May 18, 1989. Three months later, one-year-old Shane Walker, disappeared in the same neighborhood. Police suspect the disappearances may lead to a baby-selling ring. There hasn’t been a trace of either Christopher or Shane in nearly 25 years. Unsolved Mysteries treats the cases sensitively, but can’t avoid the underlying sensationalism of the implications.

The first volume went abroad for dark international intrigue, such as the “House of Terror” episode which went to France to cover the Dupont de Ligonnès murders. Volume 2 tracks a case in Brazil, a death in Oslo, Norway, and the tsunami ghosts of Japan.

“Tsunami Spirits,” directed by Clay Jeter, is the most emotionally-told episode. The sheer bewilderment on the faces of the authorities who were doing all the right things is palpable. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan killed 15,584 people and left 2,533 missing. The maximum height of the tsunami was 131 feet, we see in a crawl. The footage is riveting, sadly spectacular and devastatingly effective against the narration of a man who was pushed from his office into the flow of the waters. A teary-eyed man tells of uncovering the mud-covered and swollen face of his youngest daughter in the aftermath.

Ishinomaki suffered some of the worst damage of any in Japan. After the one-two punch of an earthquake and floods, the city was hit again by the very ghosts of the people also caught so off-guard. One woman says she doesn’t know what ghosts are supposed to look like, but she is convinced she can pick one out of a lineup. A taxi driver details a disconcerting fare. “Tsunami Spirits” is the most inventive of the episodes, and breaks the established rhythm and tone of the series, but with good effect.

“Death in Oslo,” directed by Robert M. Wise, is a haunting story, and the investigators are emotional during its telling. A security guard checks on a woman locked inside a luxury hotel room. As he knocks, he hears a gunshot. He leaves the hallway to go to the security room on the lower levels, probably to contain himself from the sudden shock. But this opens a crucial missing element, fifteen minutes of unaccounted time when an assassin could have escaped the room. The death is considered an apparent suicide, but on closer observation it becomes apparent not only this could not have been the case, but everything about how she is found reeks of an espionage mission.

This twist, although understated in its presentation, gives the episode just enough suspense to tighten the mystery. The murdered woman checked into the Oslo Plaza Hotel under the name Jennifer Fergate, but it was not her real name, and no one reported her missing. She had 25 rounds of ammunition in her briefcase, the serial numbers of her gun were professionally removed, all identifying tags from her clothing were cut off. An expert ex-spy says this has all the earmarks of a secret intelligence operation, and that phrase itself is just another way of saying “Unsolved Mystery.”

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Unsolved Mysteries is a little exploitative. While it is important the families have an outlet to expand their inquiries, the series fetishizes the crimes through obsessive camera work. The viewer begins to worry about the false hope the victims hold on to. While it is true leads are pouring in to their website, it is still a high emotional ante to place on an unsure bet. Unsolved Mysteries relies on this. It lets the viewer go from rubbernecking at an accident to laying odds on a side road. It also turns ordinary citizens into watch dogs.The series has removed the corniness of the original and continues to delve deeper into serious detective work, but this brings it farther in line with the glut of true crime series already on the market, and done better on Netflix itself. Unsolved Mysteries Volume 2 is still finding its footing after moving so far from the first iteration. It is finding a middle ground, but still a little flatfooted.

The post Unsolved Mysteries Volume 2 Review: Reboot Fits a Flatfoot More Than a Bigfoot appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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falkenscreen · 5 years

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Gilmore Girls

Gilmore Girls is better than everything else that’s out now, so let’s talk about it.

The show, still deservedly a favourite among very many, has a conspicuous and especial place in the lives of many a Gilly, this author no less. Having watched the now classic (non-sequentially) following its release, when I was just a few years shy of Rory, I returned to it in 2019 to watch it the whole way through, now a few years shy of Lorelai.

The difference in perspective, and all that which still resonates to boot, is astounding.

Somehow the ending wasn’t ruined for me, nor A Year in the Life which we’ll get to later. I’m far from the first guy to write about or fall madly in love with Gilmore Girls and if you’re not listening to Kevin T. Porter’s and Demi Adejuyigbe’s Gilmore Guys then you’re really missing out. Take these as the reflections of a most ardent fan who came to the show relatively afresh, did a Luke, went all in and found something that still sets a standard in scripting, character-building and female-driven storytelling, for which we are sorely lacking and still so grateful to Amy.

Spoilers herein for Gilmore Girls and A Year in the Life and, just so it’s out of the way; Jess, obviously. Dean quickly became a one-note boyfriend (who cheats), Logan (yes he did grow as a person) never near actively enough supported Rory in furthering her aspirations unlike others around her and Jess was the only partner who both held a candle to her intellectually and didn’t let Rory coast on her least forgiving qualities. I’m not counting Marty.

First thing’s first – story and plot. More often forgotten than not, they’re two different things. Gilmore Girls, as it was hurriedly pitch in a last ditch attempt to sell a show to the network, is about a mother and daughter who are more like best friends. Whenever it’s just the pair interacting the show was at its far and above best and never got tiring, not once, and was never as strong when Yale split them up or the revival, atypically and so consequentially, chose to see Rory and Lorelai apart for whole stretches.

Exceptionally cast, as good as Alexis Bledel was its Lauren Graham who ultimately drove the show and she never gets near enough credit for her nuanced portrayal of one of the most complex characters in modern television. Just look at the wordless despair, affection and resolve that passes across her eyes in the seconds before she steels herself for the proposal and season 5 cliff-hanger. Ask yourself how many performers can achieve such a range of emotion without dialogue in so few beats; there are few.

Significantly, mother and daughter besties are actually not what the show is about. What’s really going on is the tragedy of intergenerational disharmony as the mother who rejected her wealthy upbringing for a more regular life sees her daughter in turn rebel against her for the elite world she abandoned. With story and plot elements as strong as this, there was much to work with.

The spectre of a 16 year old Lorelai with a little bundle rocking up on the porch of the Independence Inn pleading for any job hangs over the show’s entire run. There’s been a fair few critiques over the years that Gilmore Girls is elitist or insular for its focus on small-town Connecticut which for many who haven’t been there can appear like a privileged haven.

Gilmore Girls is more accurately about a young woman and mother who didn’t get the support she needed from her family and set out to make a life where she wasn’t reliant on anyone but herself. The show, thankfully absent hackneyed flashbacks to supplement a narrative which didn’t need padding out, did however proffer us one glimpse into Lorelai’s early years establishing that Richard, amidst a great disdain for what was then very scandalous, insisted Lorelai marry the useless Christopher.

Anyone who thinks Lorelai’s circumstance or Rory’s for that matter reflects a privileged position needs to check it and on the matter of Connecticut there are many families who arrived there far from being a Richard or Emily, this author’s included; it being as diverse a place as the show’s myriad of characters suggests.

Now to Rory. Many (most) viewers were disappointed in the arc she undertakes and continues well into A Year in the Life. Yes it’s frustrating when you see characters you love take paths you’d rather they didn’t (those hoping for a happier end to Jaime’s story can relate) but her simply being on this trajectory as disappointing as it is isn’t a fair criticism of the show in and of itself and is one it has been unreasonably burdened with. For those who hate to see elitist Rory, it bears acknowledging the subtle parallel the series draws with Lorelai’s own (if more widely relatable) snobbery; think just how many times she judged or forewarned of someone simply for their being rich.

Those who were sad to not see Rory (or Lorelai) grow in key respects at least until the very end of season 7 point to this as a flaw in the series. This mistakes however the important distinction, one drawn as rarely as between story and plot, as regards character building and character growth. For the volumes we come to learn about Rory and Lorelai they conversely (and uncommonly for a character-driven series and moreover one of this length) don’t grow very much. We may not like it but hey, it’s a fact of life and often people don’t change, sometimes even after 10 years. It’s an unusual, dramatically refreshing theme befitting a drama and yes, Gilmore Girls is a drama. Like The West Wing given the volume of dialogue and hilarity it remains funnier than most comedies yet is still at the core a coming of age drama.

It is a nominally rare thing to see sustained character growth in this most distinct of series, later rendering Emily’s arc in the four most recent instalments all the more resonant. When Lorelai cautions Lane in season seven (the only era of the show when overwrought story beats infamously overtook character-driven drama) that she had best prepare for a circumstance where Lane’s children embrace the religiosity Lane rejected, it could fairly be highlighted as an unnecessary meta intrusion or an annoying ‘state the moral’ moment. It is however one of the only occasions emblematic of explicit character growth, coinciding as it happens with Rory having to contend with her most consequential instance of professional rejection. For being distinctive it resonated all the stronger in a series that would rather grow its characters and their world than the characters themselves; in modern terms a relatively novel and here welcomely idiosyncratic approach to storytelling emphasising bittersweet and very relatable aspects of our lives and interpersonal relationships.

The realm of Star’s Hollow being invested with a great deal more personality than most fictional settings, Lorelai and Rory’s narratives notably ground to a halt in Summer to see a musical tableaux of the town. If admittedly outstaying the welcome, it was a nice opportunity to say a farewell to the only significant character herein which didn’t get any dialogue. An affectionate ode throughout to small town life, it was well to remind us that every stop on the highway has a Taylor and Kirk, though rarely ones so lively and repeatedly entertaining; even if Kirk towards the end did go over the top.

Who never went over the top was Melissa McCarthy; it being a special pleasure to see her in pre-mega fame mode sharing her best moments alongside Yanic Truesdale, as well as a few hints at the more exaggerated roles she would later take on in some of Sookie’s most strident moments. The pop culture references were too a joy for any junkie; with the show (take note modern cinema) graciously never skipping whole beats to let one-liners or hark backs sink in, instead trusting that we’d get it or appreciate the resonance nonetheless.

This was conversely one of the flaws of A Year in the Life; but for allusions to Game of Thrones and a couple of other tidbits there wasn’t much acknowledgement in the scripting choices that this world had aged at all. There still being the ‘no cell phones’ sign in Luke’s after all these years, as fond a recall as it is, was just too much a stretch; on par with the infamous Game of Thrones-esque (yes Gilmore Girls did it first) roll credits moment when Rory delivers her manuscript.

For all its flaws and clustered cameos the addendums did however bring back Jason Stiles for a dignified farewell. A character very short-changed by his series’ conclusion (and lack thereof), when written out there was never a sense of closure like that proffered his contemporaries which fans indeed got ten years later.

And this brings us to the much touted ‘last four words.’ “Mum,” “Yes,” “I’m pregnant.”

It’s both a lacklustre and exceptional end in respects. Sure it would have had more of the intended resonance those ten years ago when Rory, mirroring Lorelai’s earlier experience, found herself at a stage of her life still yet to realise many of her goals that a newborn child would then and here implicitly affect. It still bears its impact but like much of A Year in the Life’s recurrent storytelling and character motifs it doesn’t resonate as desired and as it would have that era ago within a world and set of people who have now inevitably aged.

The theme and consequences of unplanned pregnancies has also already been widely explored in the series between the experiences of Lorelai, Christopher, Lane and, most unnecessarily, Luke. It’s far from improbable that any one or all of these figures, including Rory, would experience an unplanned pregnancy, yet when it came to introducing April the familiar story beats had already been well played out, as distinct from the more intimate and procedural arc with which Lane’s pregnancy is treated.

Rory’s announcement does however reflect the core theme of the series in children and parents, despite intentions and efforts made, replicating their forebear’s cycles. Despite it being foreshadowed that Logan is the father, he being evidently modelled on Christopher, here the show does not go for a bittersweet note but a heartfelt, cautionary one. As the series repeatedly reminds us, it’s far from unfortunate that children have similar experiences to their parents, or indeed that families continue to procreate. It’s just that, as when Rory dropped out of Yale, whatever happens in children’s lives may or very likely will still happen in spite of anything and everything a parent may want or try, and we’re all just along for the ride.

A Year in the Life’s highs and lows notwithstanding, it was well worth the hours to spend that much more time with our girls and loved ones (the most hilarious Paris’ return was probably the highlight) as it was over so many months and years. If you’re craving the qualities and depth that so much modern storytelling is so lacking, look no further.

Gilmore Girls is now streaming on Netflix

#xl #film/tv #netflix #gilmore girls #lauren graham #alexis bledel #melissa mccarthy #yanic truesdale #amy sherman-palladino

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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years

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The Children Act

Graceful dramas for adults are a scarcity these days. But thanks in part to a reliable supply of Ian McEwan adaptations, like the excellent but frustratingly under-the-radar Spring 2018 release “On Chesil Beach” (Dominic Cooke), we are luckily treated to some refreshingly grown-up material featuring complex humans at life-defining crossroads, forced to make choices that directly clash with the set of beliefs they had thus far lived by. Sophisticated and challenging, “The Children Act” continues this trend for filmgoers who would like to flex their intellectual muscles and engage with serious themes that don’t revolve around crudeness or kids in masks and spandex. Adapted by McEwan from his own novel and bolstered by an expressive performance by Emma Thompson (astounding even by her consistently high standards), “The Children Act” is perhaps a bit stilted in the overt way it sometimes attempts to spell out its arguments. But director Richard Eyre’s film still poses sophisticated questions around family, religion, marriage, law and the delicate boundaries that can or cannot be crossed in each institution.

Referred to as “My Lady” by almost everyone around her (as it should also be the case in real life, in all honesty), Thompson leads us into the film’s elaborate themes straightaway through her character Judge Fiona May. In the opening moments, Fiona is about to rule a much-publicized case about twins conjoined at birth—surgically separating the twins will cause one of them to pass away, and leaving them be means the death of both. While the logical decision seems obvious—why not give one of them the chance to survive and thrive—the religious parents of the twins disagree with interfering with what they call God’s will and committing a surgical act they consider to be murder. Naturally, Fiona rules the case in accordance with the law and the Parliament’s The Children Act, which puts logic over personal beliefs.

At her upscale, tastefully decorated London flat complete with a Baby Grand Fazioli piano (on which she frequently plays Bach), things don’t seem any easier than they are in the courtroom. Her neglected husband Jack (Stanley Tucci) casually complains about their now sexless marriage and announces his desire to have an affair with a younger member of his faculty, without paying the slightest bit of attention to the constant life-or-death pressure Fiona seems to be under in her chosen field. Soon enough, another one of those extreme cases presents itself; one centered on the 17-year-old Adam (the terrific Fionn Whitehead of “Dunkirk”), who needs an urgent blood transfusion to survive his battle with leukemia. Having been raised by a Jehovah’s Witness family who views mixing another person’s blood in their son’s body as toxic and morally wrong, Adam firmly mirrors his parents’ beliefs and declines the procedure, accepting his fate. Yet still being a minor mere weeks away from his 18th birthday, the decision would really be up to Fiona—she visits Adam, an impressive kid of great potential and sense of humor, at his hospital bed, eventually ruling to save the kid’s life.

Overwhelmed by the new possibilities of life, the now spiritually whole but religiously doubting Adam grows an infatuation towards Fiona; writes her profound letters and follows her around while she deals with her growing set of problems at home, intensified by the high-pressure rehearsals for an upcoming concert. Thompson excels through these emotionally demanding scenes, burying her reserved character’s softer side and true feelings for Adam deep within and safely out of sight, while she acts in the only logical way she knows how. Eyre grabs on to an impossible balance here, founded between subtle sexual tension and protective instincts—he smartly shies away from exploiting either end of the spectrum. Admittedly, Adam’s verbal pleas to Fiona feel a bit labored and overwrought—but they still come across as plausible in the hands of a young boy visibly infatuated by a powerful woman who saved his life. Meanwhile, McEwan doesn’t entirely abandon Jack, either. His selfish demands assume a complex dimension in the midst of a modern-day marriage challenged by relatable issues: what happens when careers, priorities and the once intense but now subdued desires eventually interfere in the bedroom? As mature as movies get, the elegantly costumed and designed “The Children Act” is a welcome getaway from the now-fading summer’s loud fare, into something quiet and tasteful that aims for the aging soul.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2Nh3JLi

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pubtheatres1 · 6 years

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CENTRAL (STORY) LINE Fingers Crossed Theatre Theatre N16 10 - 13 September 2018 ‘Central (Story) Line is a powerful work of truly humanist theatre, compassionately told, expertly performed, and gratefully received’ ★★★★★ When depicting life and one’s journey through it, there are few images as powerful as the train. Once a symbol for modernity, the train represents a movement, both literal and figurative, through space and time, dropping its passengers off at various destinations before rolling on again. In the Jewish experience, this symbolism may be all the more poignant, given the role of trains in transporting people to one very specific, horrific end. It is fitting then, that a drama about the lives of Jewish children should play out over a series of train journeys. Central (Story) Line is a moving and subtle work that explores the changing identities and relationships of three Jewish children, following their escape from Nazi Germany to Britain via the Kindertransport scheme. Covering the late 1930s all the way up to the present day, the play shows how the children grow up together, their experiences of living in Britain, and how they deal with past traumas, lost family, and survivor’s guilt. Central (Story) Line is a triumph. The performers are simply superb, offering fully realised characters with their own unique quirks, humour, and insecurities – from the laddish yet lovable Charlie (Duncan Hodgkinson), the impressionable but well-meaning Henry (Eliah Arnstjerna), and the head-strong yet warm-hearted Louise (Heidi C. Nielsen). These are people you want to spend time with, whose bickering and jokes remind us of our own friendships, imperfect yet enriching, and not always easy to sustain over time. Masterfully directed by Daniela Atiencia, Central (Story) Line makes full and creative use of its talented ensemble. This happens through economical yet effective staging, but also riotous visual comedy, particularly in the play’s slick scene transitions. These happen on-stage, with actors changing costumes to a soundtrack of music and voices from across time periods – all the way from Vera Lynn and VE day to Rihanna and the election of Donald Trump. These high-energy sequences not only progress the story, they also relieve tension and ensure that audience engagement never dwindles. In less-skilled hands, the play could have easily fallen into the trap of overwrought sentimentality or harrowing bleakness. What we get however, is a perfectly-judged, perfectly-balanced work that tells its story through character and subtext, rather than platitudes. Especially impressive is the play’s subtle treatment and discussion of themes like collective trauma, identity, and alienation, all of which were present but not explicit, thus respecting the audience to understand what’s happening, and come to their own conclusions. Nevertheless, Central (Story) Line does not shy away from making a point, and the final juxtaposition of audio clips – one announcing Trump’s refugee separation policy, and the other commemorating how the Kindertransport saved 10,000 lives – brought the play into a sharp modern focus. If we are still separating children from parents, punishing difference, and denying liberties, how much have we really learnt in eighty years? Central (Story) Line is a powerful work of truly humanist theatre, compassionately told, expertly performed, and gratefully received. Editor’s Note: This show started its development at Etcetera Theatre https://www.theatren16.co.uk/ Keep in touch with the company here: https://www.fingerscrossedtheatre.com/ Reviewer Alex Hayward is a playwright, poet and author of short fiction. Raised in the West Country, Alex moved to London to pursue an MA in literature at Queen Mary University of London and has not left since. His plays deal with themes of nationalism, trauma, and the limits of idealism. @alexwhayward

#Central (Story) Line Theatre N16 Fingers Crossed Theatre Jewish diaspora Review

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kyukurator-blog · 7 years

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DEFINITELY NOT DOWNTON ABBEY

For years now we’ve been suckers for costume drama (cue 1729 trumpet “Fanfare-Rondeau” by Moret –the Masterpiece Classic theme). P&P, Sense & Sensibility, and yes, the endlessly foamy Downton.

But when somebody comes along with a wicked new twist on period drama, we love it even more.

LADY MACBETH (2016)

Not Shakespeare – this is based on “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk” a novella by Dostoevsky contemporary Andrei Leskov.

Boris, a nasty but rich old man, buys young Katherine as a wife for his equally nasty son, Alexander, who lives at home. On their wedding night Alexander reveals that he is both kinky and impotent. Plus, they won’t let her leave the house.

But when father and son both leave town on business (bad idea) Katherine gets out and falls into passion with a stable hand named Sebastian. The affair opens up depths of passion and dark resolve in the heretofore meek Katherine; before long she has disposed of both the father and the son. The film is reportedly a breakout for Florence Pugh (Catherine). It’s also notable for breaking with costume drama conventions and casting of black actors in both the roles of Sebastian and Katherine’s maid.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS (2011)

Casting an unknown black actor in the “Caribbean” role once occupied by Laurence Olivier and Ralph Fiennes is only one of the breaks with convention that make Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights worth watching. There are also the Heath, which is both less inviting and more

Arnold has won the Cannes Jury Award three times for pointedly contemporary stories. Here she worked to strip away the buffer of literary awe and invent a sort of proto-Wuthering Heights. Her Heath is a brutal place, but teeming with life – we see a microscopic child’s eye view of the bugs and undergrowth. The connection between the young Cathy and Heathcliffe is primal and childlike too — it knows no other way and no other world.

Very exciting and freshening. Maybe the movie begins to take its mission to re-invent too seriously, throwing in a few too many “fucks”, “cunts” and off-kilter angles. You still come away with the feeling that you’ve seen a vision of the book that makes you want to read it again.

If you loved the 1939 classic, you may hate this. But we do and didn’t.

THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT (1991)

In many ways the opposite of Arnold’s film, Greenaway’s first feature imposes a surreal formalism and arch eroticism on a period that happens to be ideally suited to such an approach.

Set in 1694, the contract of the title is a commission from a rich wife to draw her absent husband’s country estate in meticulous detail – the specialty of the handsome and cocky draughtsman.

But there’s a rider to the contract. In addition to room, board, and a small payment, the draughtsman gets to enjoy the lady’s favors whenever he desires. After a token protestation the lady says yes.

The film is as methodical and meticulous as the draughtsman – but peppered with tiny anachronisms and incongruities. After a while the stilted dialogue and measured pace begin to wear you down.

But then the (also married) daughter points out that tiny clues are creeping into the rigidly composed scene, and suggests that the draughtsman may be being set up as a patsy for the absent father’s murder. She blackmails the draughtsman – by demanding the same intimate favors that he requires from her mother.

ANGELS AND INSECTS (1991)

This baroque delight was directed by sculptor Philip Haas and based on an A.S. Byatt novel. It seemed wonderfully perverse when it came out, but we just watched the trailer again and it comes off as so comically overwrought that now we need to revisit the film itself.

Roger Ebert (who liked it a lot) said it was the “dark underbelly of a Merchant-Ivory film”.

Yes, but — in an odd way, not really that dark. What’s delightful about the film is that it takes the insect behaviors that entomologist William (Mark Rylance) has spent years studying in the Amazon, and overlays them on the hothouse manners of the aristocratic Victorian family of his patron. Everything is brilliantly colored yet emotionally detached – until it’s punctuated by frenzied passion.

Which is exactly how blindingly blonde Eugenia Alabaster (Patsy Kensit) behaves toward William after she has astonished him by accepting his proposal.

But like Wuthering Heights it’s the brother you have to watch out for. Douglas Henshall is Edgar Alabaster, as blond as his sister and enraged that a brunette Scotsman – penniless to boot – should lay fingers on her. Kristen Scott Thomas is wonderful as the mousy maid whose drawings of ants eventually catch William’s eye.

A YOUNG DOCTOR’S NOTEBOOK (2012-13)

We’re still waiting for an English-language version of Mikhail Bulgakov’s posthumous delight Master and Margarita (it’s been optioned!) but in the meantime there’s this semi-autobiographical series based on the author’s short stories.

It’s a dark, dark comedy, with Daniel Radcliffe playing a young doctor graduates from med school in 1917. It’s the middle of the Russian Revolution and he lands in one of the most backward parts of Siberia, where superstition is more credible than science and practice of the medical arts require a strong arm and an even stronger stomach.

John Hamm plays the older, wiser doctor who is not just looking back on his youth, but actually interacting with his younger self – even as he’s desperately clinging to his profession despite a rampaging addiction to morphine.

It’s a short series, two seasons of 4 episodes each, shot on a shoestring by UK’s Sky Arts. It’s uneven, but the draw here is the stars, especially Hamm, and a chance to get another glimpse inside Bulgakov’s mind.

CRIMSON PEAK (2015)

As you would expect from Guillermo del Torro, this spooky romance out-gothics the gothics.

The movie starts in Buffalo, New York with Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowski) receiving a visit from her dead mother, with a warning “Beware Crimson Peak”.

Fourteen years later, Edith falls for British baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and despite warnings from her father goes to England to live with him and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) in the family home, which is perched above a red clay mine.

When Edith’s father and childhood friend Alan (Charlie Hunnam) discover that Sharpe has been married and widowed three times before, Alan travels to England to save her. By this time, Edith is seeing red ghosts and coughing up blood. It’s then that Sharpe tells her the mansion is sometimes called Crimson Peak.

The movie is good, dark fun, brimming with dark symbolism, horror movie tropes, doomed romance, and allusions to previous gothic novelists and filmmakers.

DEFINITELY NOT DOWNTON ABBEY was originally published on FollowTheThread

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ihavethoughtsaboutfilms · 7 years

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‘Lion’ and its oppositions

A three-act portrait of dislocation and discovery; nature and nurture come head-to-head in a story that, despite its animalistic title, couldn't be more human.

The West has a tendency to fetishise poverty and hardship when it's suitably removed from our immediate locale. We turn it into something noble, as though suffering was a shortcut to salvation. Often in cinema, this mentality breeds a redemption narrative where the protagonist's acceptance of their trauma invariably leads to their rebirth. But such conceits frequently neglect the subtler internal conflicts of character.

Garth Davis' feature debut, Lion, does away with this romantic trope in favour of a more protean and poignant story of displacement, identity crisis and family dynamics. His moving drama shines an insightful light on the idiosyncrasies of adversity in a film whose emphasis on honest expression of emotion triumphs over its occasionally slow pace. Its cerebral depiction of a child lost explores such challenging themes with fluidity, tracing the path of a boy who, though physically removed from his home, never leaves emotionally. The result is a wrenching piece of cinema that rarely fails to keep the audience's heart in their throat.

The film, adapted from a memoir by Saroo Brierley, charts the non-fictional account of a young Indian boy's unintended separation from his family. Aged just five years old, Saroo (fantastically portrayed by Sunny Pawar), is transplanted 1,600km (and then a further 10,000) from his home village near rural Khandwa, when he boards a decommissioned train after a losing his brother during a midnight errand. An accidental refugee, young Saroo finds himself first in Kolkata, unable to speak the language or correctly remember the name of his home town — the result of a childlike mispronunciation that would be endearing if not for the catastrophic consequences. Disoriented and alone, Saroo reticently makes his way through the forces of an alien adult world until he is appropriated by the state. Despite the best efforts of a minimally effective social services to locate his family, he is eventually adopted by a young Australian couple (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) and shipped off to Holbart, Tasmania.

This is a portrait of a phenomenon that occurs (as the post-credits coda informs us) with alarming frequency. Every year, over 80,000 children are abandoned or go missing in India. Through the proxy of Saroo, Lion provides us with a narrow glimpse into a reality almost too distressing to comprehend at true scale. Sunny Pawar absolutely excels in his portrayal of a child forced prematurely to inhabit a mature world. The juxtaposition of childlike innocence with the callous and frenetic procession of Indian life around him is extremely jarring. Architecture and people alike tower above him, the oppressive nature of his surroundings all the marked by cinematographer Greig Fraser's knee-level wide-angle framing of the scenes. Through this lens, we are forced to share Saroo's perspective, both literally and figuratively, drawing us deeper into the nightmare of his experience. In one tortuous tracking shot, he retrieves an old cardboard box – his singular possession – as his impromptu bed, resigning himself to a bleak pragmatism that should never befall a child. Just eight years old (a non-English speaker — he learned his lines phonetically), Sawar effortlessly captures the combined trepidation and stoicism necessitated by a child fending for themselves in an inhospitable environment.

These scenes are some of the most arresting in the film. Their solemnity is derived from the misapplication of childlike wonder; the innocence of Saroo clashing profoundly with the iniquity of his circumstance. But this is only one half of the story. The second act sees a matured Saroo (played by Dev Patel), some 20 years on, living a comfortable life off the Australian coast. Having spent the formative years of his life raised by his kindly adoptive family, his identity is almost entirely shaped by his Australia upbringing. Affable, charming and caring, he reflects everything emblematic of a functional and loving family unit. But following a Proustian flashback brought on by a childhood delicacy, he becomes plagued by an inexorable desire to rediscover his roots.

It is here we arrive at the film's primary apprehension — the extent to which we owe our present to our past. Davis addresses the traditional 'nature vs. nurture' issue obliquely; the question of whether one should search for their roots when they have had little bearing in shaping their present selves lingers in the subtext of every interaction. In conversation with his friends, Saroo vacillates between revealing and repressing his past, straining against his ego out of respect for de facto parents.

This is a picture of a man "torn between worlds and identities". Patel flourishes as the 30-year-old Saroo, capturing the discord between a reverence for his loving, stable home life and a growing desire to unearth his past. Genial yet tempered in his demeanour, this is a hero on a quest for his own origin story, yet plagued by guilt about his decision to do so. His efforts are balanced between equally between searching for his Indian home and hiding his intentions from his adoptive parents, for fear of appearing ungrateful. When his girlfriend (Rooney Mara, making the best of an oddly deferent role) attempts to get him to share his mission with his family, his reactionary response betrays this friction: his past and present pulling his identity in diametrically opposed directions. His pilgrimage takes him (and us) on a journey of doubt and desire where the thematic focus is less on the outcome of the search, and more on the implications of searching in the first place.

This is a 21st-century story, and the mechanism for this search is correspondingly modern. A friend suggests Saroo try, "this new thing, Google Earth", to retroactively trace his journey. Writer Luke Davies acknowledged the difficulties in penning a script that focuses heavily on GPS; in avoiding the modern crime-drama cliché of, "a whole bunch of actors... crammed with exposition-heavy dialogue pointing at computer screens". Lion circumnavigates this problem through its use of visual counterpoint, ensuring that sweeping screen-within-a-screen images of Google are paired with shots Dev Patel's expressive eyes, combining the macro and micro concerns of the film with effective subtlety. Although Google Earth is pivotal to the story, Davies does well to eschew making technology the hero. It is the means, but its emotional resonance lies only in enabling Saroo's quest to find wholeness.

Critics have (quite rightly) touted Patel's performance as a sensation. Certainly, his charismatic and earnest portrayal of a boy displaced demonstrates his ability to engage with a much deeper role than he has been historically permitted. But it is newcomer Sunny Pawar as a young Saroo that really steals the show. He is perhaps indebted to his inexperience on screen, as it is his naturalistic innocence that shines through his performance. At the opposite end of the spectrum, veteran Nicole Kidman gives a recent-career highlight with her impassioned portrayal of the distressed mother. We see the paradox of the maternal instinct in her divided character; the tension between pride and worry for her son revealed transiently when the façade of fortitude slips.

Lion is a film of conflicts. Conflict between worlds, conflict of identities, conflict between the internal and the external. Yet, as Tim Robey notes, for a film about dualities, the script never veers into cheap drama by forcing us to pick a side from these binary oppositions. Thankfully, Lion is a much more nuanced piece of cinema. Aside from the occasionally overwrought score, Davis steers clear of maudlin tactics that pander to our sentimentality, ensuring instead that we remain consistently engaged in Saroo’s struggle through his characterisation of dialectical tension. With empathy, measured dialogue and sober camerawork, Davis fulfils the promise of the film’s title: a fierce roar of emotion carried off with feline grace.

#lion #review #film #cinema #devpatel #nicolekidman #adversity #opposition #family #identity #essay

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