issue 25
Film
49
The Best, So Far Hamish Popplestone
The Intern Directed by Nancy Meyers
½ Sarah Dillon This isn’t a review: I’m too emotionally involved. Here’s the thing about this film. I thought it was going to be a safe watch. I mean, Nancy Meyers, right? She wrote The Holiday, which I unashamedly pronounce my all-time favourite good-bad Christmas film. It started with a male voice-over, and that’s what I was expecting from the whole thing. It was going to be a nice fluffy film with too much about the boring old guy and some hyper-stereotypical power woman. It’s not. And maybe don’t go, if that’s what you’re expecting. I thought Anne Hathaway was the wrong pick for the savvy CEO role, but it turns out she’s perfect, because Jules is smart, driven, vulnerable and struggling. She’s trying to be the perfect 21st-century woman, and Meyers wants to push a conversation about what that looks like: how do you have a job and a husband and daughter? How do you be all things to all people all the time? It’s pretty heavyhanded, but surprisingly heartfelt. There’s a scene in the film where de Niro’s character, Ben, and Jules are sitting in a hotel room, and Jules breaks down over her family life. “You know me, Ben,” she sobs, “I’m not easy.” No, that doesn’t mean what you’re thinking. She’s talking about being someone who’s hard to deal with: the classic “high maintenance” woman. This is, of course, where your humble reviewer had to hold off the tears (in the name of professionalism) and make her way to the bathroom not-too-quickly after the film ended in order to start sobbing. Because here’s the thing: Meyers presents us with a real woman here, something all too rare. And sure, the character still plays into certain tropes, and there’s weird mental illness jokes, and the soundtrack is hideous, but at the end of the day, there’s something that hits home about this film. So here’s to you, Nancy Meyers. Here’s to us— the women who aren’t easy. But especially the women who write characters like us, because in today’s Hollywood, that sure as hell can’t be fun either.
Thanks to Reading Cinemas Courtnay for providing double tickets this week
Imagine a “Best Movies of 2015” list, conceived before half of the best movies of the year have even hit the big screen. Yup, here it is! 1. Mad Max: Fury Road In a year dominated by a resurgence in movie franchises, the Mad Max revival came out on top. It’s an atypical masterpiece: the eccentricities in characters, unremitting action sequences, and dystopian setting went through the blender and poured out unique cinema that puts a woman in the driver’s seat of a movie named after its male lead, and delivers lunacy that has a serious medical impact on the viewer’s testosterone levels. 2. Ex Machina A Frankenstein-esque story superbly written for the age of artificial intelligence. Its small budget gave more heartbeats per dollar than any of its big budget co-movies this year. 3. Selma Based on the Selma to Montgomery voting right marches of 1965, Selma showcases A+ acting in a political story that never feels prescriptive. It’s suspenseful, rhetorical, and epic. 4. The Martian Similar to Gravity in its out-in-space exposition, dedication to scientific accuracy, and constant gravitational pull to the edge of your seat. Not similar to Gravity in its greater use of Matt Damon, greater use of comedy, and more satisfying narrative. 5. Straight Outta Compton No-one expected this enthralling biopic to mimic the underground success story of Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and Eazy-E in their undertaking to become some of the most influential artists in hip-hop. It captured the most interesting fraction of their lives and the best part is that you don’t have to like hip-hop to like this movie. 6. Jurassic World The highest grossing movie so far. Jurassic World distracted us from a dead plot with sublime CGI dinos and references to the original that made us feel nostalgic and warm inside, which was all we cared about. 7. Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation The fifth instalment in 20 years and easily the best one for its ironyladen old-school action sequences, plot twists and motifs. It would be better if the film series just matured and stopped calling Tom Cruise “Ethan Hunt”, which confuses us into thinking that Cruise doesn’t commit eccentric, nonsensical stunts on a day-to-scientologist-day basis in his personal life, but, other than that, no complaints about this film. Worst movies: Tomorrowland, Minions, Pitch Perfect 2, 50 Shades of Grey, and Jupiter Ascending. editor@salient.org.nz