Reading books or newspapers are long gone, although occasionally you see Kindles or iPads. The back-of-the-seat screens offer all types of movies and TV, plus video games and puzzles.

I took Qatar Airways for its longest flight out of Auckland, a journey lasting more than 16 hours, plus another six hours from Doha to London after a brief change of aircraft. Sleep was sporadic between meals, and I clocked up an amazing number of movies.

On the first leg, leaving Auckland on a late Sunday afternoon, I saw eight full movies until arrival at Doha at 11.30pm local time. A mad dash followed through Hamad International Airport, with what seemed to be thousands of others going through the transfers, security, and finding new departure gates.

Arrival at London Heathrow before dawn on the Monday was a breeze by comparison. I must have slept a little as I managed only three movies on that leg, including Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical The Fabelmans.

I had missed its original release, though it is now available to rent online. But the big in-flight rewards come from movies that aren’t well-known blockbusters. I opted for the subtitled selection from Europe and South America. These were some of the highlights:

From Argentina and Chile came 1976 or Chile ’76 (2022), a drama set during the military coup, about a doctor’s wife who covertly takes care of a wounded revolutionary at a remote beach settlement.

Germany offered two brilliant comments on its past and present. In Einem Land das es Nicht Mehr, or In a Land that no Longer Exists (2022) recreates the alternative culture of fashion and pop music under the communist regime, just months before its collapse in November, 1989.

Tausend Zeilen or A Thousand Lines (2022) is a dramatisation of a real-life fake news scandal involving a journalist at Der Spiegel in 2018. His stories about victims of oppression were imaginary, but were published and won awards because they fitted the left-leaning media narrative.

The softer side of German filmmaking was evident in two comedies, the terminal disease romance Sterne unter der Stadt or First Snow of Summer (2023), and the domestic mayhem of Der Nachname or Family Affairs/Family Matters (2022) in which related couples quarrel during a holiday on the mid-Atlantic island of Lanzarote.

Norway provided another real-life adaptation, Gulltransporten, or Gold Run/The Gold Transport (2022), about how 50 tons of reserves were smuggled to Britain as the Nazis invaded in 1940.

The Catalan-speaking area of Spain was the setting for two dramas about the struggle for survival as outsiders buy cheap farm land in a hard-up, high country area. Suro (2022) focuses on a cork-tree plantation and the use of illegal migrant labour, while As Bestas or The Beasts (2022) examines a clash between locals and a French couple setting up an organic farm.

CLIPS

Dumb Money

(Sony)

Financial hijinks on Wall Street seldom make boring viewing. This is no exception as director Craig Gilllespie (I, Tonya) goes straight for the jugular in events involving a company called GameStop. For a few crazy weeks in late 2020 and January 2021, it had Wall Street’s hedge funds in a tizz as they lost billions on “shorting” the stock – buying options in the hope of it falling in value. On the other side, thousands of punters, using a low-cost, day-trading platform called RobinHood, sent GameStop to dizzy heights, making those “short” options worthless. Billed as a clash between the economic classes, the narrative offers a simplistic version based on a variety of individuals who bought into the hype, briefly becoming rich, before the bubble bursts. Paul Dano and Seth Rogen lead an energetic cast, who are even more manic than those depicted in The Big Short (2016), the best of the Wall Street movies.

Rating: Mature audiences. 104 minutes.

L’Innocent/The Innocent
(Palace Films)

French thrillers are noted for their rapid pace and countless twists that leave you guessing for a conclusion. When the ubiquitous Louis Garrel, a prolific actor and now director of his third movie, is suspicious of a just-released criminal (Roschdy Zem) who has caught the fancy of his widowed mother (Anouk Grinberg), it’s obvious that nothing will be straightforward. Despite the assurances of a rushed wedding, and financial backing for her florist shop, Garrel maintains a close watch on his stepfather with the help of his girlfriend (Noémie Merlant). Their sleuthing is soon exposed, forcing them into a heist plan that goes badly wrong. Garrel’s direction overcomes some of the more unlikely parts of the plot by giving full rein to his veteran cast members (Zem and Grinberg also worked with director and dad Philippe Garrel) as well as Merlant, last seen in Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Tár.

Rating: Mature audiences. 99 minutes.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
(Netflix)

If you were underwhelmed by Asteroid Story and French Despatch, as I was, then Wes Anderson has treats in store via Roald Dahl, whose Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) remains one of the director’s best adaptations. Four of Dahl’s stories have been packaged into a visual feast by Anderson and his cast of regulars, now including Benedict Cumberbatch. As the titular Sugar, Cumberbatch plays a London playboy who learns to see the world more clearly with his eyes closed, thus ensuring him gambling success. The story is narrated directly from the text, with Ralph Fiennes sitting in for Dahl, while Anderson adroitly moves the candy-box scenery around his characters. This 39-minute episode is a main course to the three 17-minute side dishes: Poison, with Cumberbatch and Kingsley combatting a deadly snake; The Swan, a gut-wrenching tale of bullying; and The Rat Catcher, with Richard Ayoade as the narrator, Fiennes as the “rodent operative”, and Rupert Friend as a mechanic.

Rating: Parental guidance advised. 90 minutes.

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Anderson’s first movies, Bottle Rocket (1996) and Rushmore (1998), were like a breath of fresh air, naturalistic in form, but with characters that were immediately engaging. Anderson immediately gained a loyal following. 

That admiration increased when he added more flourishes to his style, marking him apart as a unique talent. The animated Fantastic Mr Fox (2009), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and Isle of Dogs (2018) took him into more fantastical territory. The subject matter alone was impressively original, ranging from the rise of fascism in central Europe to a world overcome by rubbish and dogs. 

But The French Dispatch (2021) was a step too far, for me at least, putting technical ingenuity above content. His use of symmetrical framing, pastel colour palettes and a large cast of A-list “walk-ons”, looked like an expensive hoax. 

A bevy of A-listers are also in Asteroid City (Universal) – among them Tilda Swinton, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Matt Dillon, Steve Carell, Scarlet Johansson, Adrian Brody, Margot Robbie, and Lief Schreiber – but the artifice is overwhelming. It echoed the blockbuster hit Barbie, which took $4.6 million in its first week alone. 

Anderson creates two worlds for his play-within-a-play plot structure. One is the dreary black-and-white set of a 1950s television production; the other is a Barbie-bright desert town, where atomic testing is occurring on the horizon. 

To the stirring music of western tunes (“Last Train to San Fernando”), a recently widowed photographer (Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman), nerdy son (Jake Ryan) and three daughters, arrive in Asteroid City for the 1955 Junior Stargazer Convention. 

Also in attendance are military types to judge the youngsters’ inventions, an Elizabeth Taylor lookalike movie star (Johansson), and a famed astronomer (Swinton), who conjures up a visitor from outer space. 

These bare elements of the plot are fleshed out by a fascinating array of props, from trains (inevitably accompanied by “Freight Train, Freight Train, Going So Fast”) to vending machines selling worthless real estate. 

The various framing devices, including slides that tell you what scenes are coming up and what might be happening, are messy, and confirm just how manipulated you feel while watching. 

I didn’t see any profundity coming from this, though the audience liked the many one-liners, and a few standout scenes, such as the little girls deciding what to do with the cremated remains of their mother in a Tupperware container. 

Anderson may have intended an elaborate design with his collection of comic sketches – or not. But at least they aren’t boring, and tumble out as if they foretold the Barbenheimer phenomena with its union of Barbie’s plasticky, fluorescent world, and mushroom clouds from the atom bombs going off in the background.   

Here’s hoping Anderson’s next feature, the animated The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar for Netflix goes back to basics. 

Rating: Mature audiences. 105 minutes. 

CLIPS 

Chevalier 
(Searchlight/Disney) 

The story of Joseph Bologne, a champion fencer, virtuoso violinist, and accomplished composer and conductor, is more than worthy, given his background and lack of historic recognition. He was the son of a French plantation owner in Guadeloupe and a slave in the 18th century. In the pre-Revolutionary court of Queen Marie Antoinette, he was admired for his talent and charisma, achieving the honour of Chevalier de Saint-Georges. But he sacrificed this by siding with the revolutionaries. His life’s work was lost to posterity and was only recently recognised. This American-made production in English is lavish in its costuming, but staid and pedestrian in its staging. No blame can be put on three of its leads, Kelvin Harrison Jr (Bologne), Lucy Boynton (Marie Antoinette), and Samara Weaving as an opera singer with whom Bologne has an affair. The self-conscious script overdoes the gender and racial themes, while failing to present the background events with any depth. 

Rating: Parental guidance advised. 108 minutes. 

Perfect Days 
(Madman) 

The great German director Wim Wenders, whose career started in 1970, and helped launch that country’s film industry on the international scene, shows the value of experience, as his camera follows a reclusive, traditionalist workman on his daily round of cleaning some of Tokyo’s most unusual public toilets, built for the Olympic Games in 2022. Shot in just 16 days, and displaying all the restraint of Japan’s own famous directors, this is contemplative cinema at its best. Koji Yakusho won the best actor award at this year’s Cannes festival for his performance, which depicts dignity and commitment in even the most menial activity. His routine, which includes reading novels by William Faulkner and Patricia Highsmith, is briefly broken by the arrival of his niece, who soon appreciates her uncle’s qualities, while sharing his interest in 1960s and 1970s rock music by the likes of The Animals and Lou Reed. 

Rating: Mature audiences. 123 minutes. 

Spin Me Round 
(Sony) 

Alison Brie (Promising Young Woman), accompanied by Aubrey Plaza (Emily the Criminal), lift this adult romance of naïve Americans seeking love in Italy to a level that, while not reaching the heights of Audrey Hepburn all those years ago, is more than passable entertainment. Brie wins a prize from the Italian restaurant she works for in California to attend a cooking course in Tuscany. But all is not what it appears when she arrives to find a decidedly dodgy outfit. But she is soon overwhelmed by the charismatic rich guy (Alessandro Nivola), who is pulling all the strings. Plaza first appears as his mysterious girlfriend, who takes Brie to places she ought not go. They then pair up as the plot twists and red flags continue, while events turn nasty. Co-writer-director Jeff Baena does a neat job of putting the knife into romantic illusions. Available for streaming on Neon. 

Rating: R16. 100 minutes.     

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Yet the multiplexes these days, at least in Auckland, show fewer English language movies. Instead, they are more likely to be in Mandarin, Hindi, and Tagalog.

Of course, the arthouse cinemas are still devoted to predominantly European productions. A festival merely means the choice expands exponentially, with filmgoers facing a daunting selection of unknown quantities.

First up is the Italian Film Festival, which has started its run in more than 20 locations and cinemas throughout the country, concluding in Waiheke Island next January.

Closely following is the French Film Festival, which travels to 17 centres, with multiple cinemas in some locations. Both festivals offer 20 or more all-new features aimed at a wide range of audiences.

The New Zealand International Film Festival kicks off in July, and has already announced some of its early titles. It usually delivers a large swag from the Cannes Film Festival (May 16-23).

While Cannes is the natural home for potential award-winners, the Italian and French festivals offer more modest fare aimed at domestic audiences in those countries. This may mean sitting through some comedies that defy translation, or obscure dramas and social issues of little interest.

However, there are exceptions. A Girl Returned (L’Arminuta) (Palace Films) is based on a novel by Donatella Di Pietrantonio that reverses the story of last year’s Irish hit, A Quiet Girl.

Instead of being taken from Dickensian poverty into more middle-class circumstances, the just-turned teenage protagonist (Sofia Fiore) is brutally “returned” (the meaning of arminuta) from her adoptive urban family to her peasant birth parents.

In 1975, they eke out a subsistence living in Abruzzo, a barren high-country region east of Rome. The father is abusive and has work in a quarry, while the stressed mother (an unsmiling Vanessa Scalera) has a new baby, no spare beds, and scarcely enough food for yet another mouth, let alone a sophisticated girl with high expectations.

The “returned” girl’s clothing and deportment makes her stand out as an oddity in the village and at school. She is forced to share a bed with her lively younger sister (Carlotta De Leonardis), the only person likely to ease the adjustment to a new life.

Money from the elusive, adoptive mother (Elene Lietti) enables the girls, and their older brother, to escape their predicament with brief, but forbidden, trips to the seaside. While the money is welcome, it’s made clear that there’s no path back to the original family.

That upbringing provides advantages over her rural peers, with hopes of higher education, but she remains a “parcel” child who has been passed on, a key theme in the novel’s social message about loss of identity.

This is a powerful and emotional story that sets a high standard for the festival fare over the next few months.

Rating: Mature audiences. 110 minutes.

CLIPS

Nostalgia
(Palace Films)

Few places in Italy inspire as much trepidation and guarded admiration, at least to outsiders, as Naples. Its narrow streets, crumbling architecture and hidden places are brilliantly exposed, as a successful businessman (Pierfrancesco Favino) returns to see his dying mother after 40 years of living abroad. His past remains a mystery as he explores the places where he grew up, recalls his exploits as a youth, and finds his mother is no longer living in the family home. Instead, it is occupied by surly strangers, and she has been banished to a basement apartment. He moves her to more salubrious surroundings, and his reappearance does not go unnoticed. He learns from the local priest (Francesco Di Leva) that the district, Rione Sanità, lies under the shadow of Badman (Tommaso Ragno), a crime boss who was once the businessman’s best friend and the reason he fled to Africa. As the story unfolds, his fate becomes more obvious, even as he plans to bring his wife from Cairo to join him. Based on a novel by Ermanno Rea, and directed by Mario Martone.

Rating: Mature audiences. 118 minutes.

Polite Society
(Universal)

This hyperactive mashup of spy thriller, martial arts movie, Bollywood parody, and science fiction fantasy, sends a British-Pakistani family’s domestic dramas into orbit. Though grounded as a story of teenaged girls trying to undo an arranged marriage plot, its appeal is reminiscent of Bend it Like Beckham. Sisters Priya Kansara (Bridgerton) and Ritu Arya are both dreamers, but of differing dispositions. The former wants to be a stuntwoman, and employs all of her energies to foil the older sister’s wedding plans, particularly when it’s apparent that sinister forces are at work. The action scenes are ludicrously violent for the improbable plot and cartoonish characters, which I suspect is director Nida Manzoor’s point about breaking as many conventions as possible.

Rating: Mature audiences. 104 minutes.

Armageddon Time
(Amazon Prime)

Family life doesn’t appeal to a sensitive 11-year-old (Michael Banks Repeta) growing up in the New York district of Queens. His Jewish parents (Jeremy Strong and Anne Hathaway) lament his lack of drive compared with his older brother (Ryan Sell). It gets worse when the younger one gets into trouble with his closest friend (Jaylin Webb), whose life is even harder due to racial discrimination. Writer-director James Gray, in his debut feature, draws on autobiographical experience for the story’s authenticity, which is underlined by the casting of Anthony Hopkins as the grandfather who provides alternative advice on what it means to be a grown-up. The chemistry with his grandson contrasts with the lack of credibility in some of the lesser characters, including Donald Trump’s father Fred, who sponsors a posh private school in the neighbourhood. The connection with later events is presaged in the setting of events during the 1980 presidential election won by Ronald Reagan.

Rating: Mature audiences. 115 minutes.

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South: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Glorious Epic of the Antarctic, an 88-minute documentary, was first released in 1919, and was remastered by the British Film Institute for cinema release in 2022. One screening in London featured a live performance by the Covent Garden Sinfonia. It is considered the world’s first documentary feature. 

The ill-fated expedition has produced a mini-library of books, which range across the spectrum from those aimed at children to texts on management and leadership. 

Among the movies, George Butler produced two documentaries using Hurley’s footage to replicate parts of the expedition: The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Expedition (2000) and a 40-minute version for IMAX, Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure (2001).  

The former was based on Caroline Alexander’s book, while the latter features interviews with other explorers and mountaineers, including Reinhold Messner. 

A year later, Kenneth Branagh played Shackleton in a two-part British TV series, simply called Shackleton, and filmed in the UK, Iceland, and Greenland. An earlier four-part series was made in 1983 covering all four of Shackleton’s expeditions. 

In 2012, New Zealand documentary maker Leanne Pooley produced Shackleton’s Captain, which focused on Akaroa farmer Frank Worsley, who captained Endurance. It was also based on a book, by John Thomson, and used a combination of dramatised scenes, interviews, and Hurley’s photographic archive. 

The latest to join these is an Australian production, Shackleton: The Greatest Story of Survival (Kismet), which combines Hurley’s and Burler’s material with a recreation led by environmental scientist author and adventurer Tim Jarvis. 

Shackleton’s expedition aimed to cross Antarctica by foot with dog sleds from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. But their ship became trapped in ice for nine months before it could make landfall at the starting point, Vahsel Bay.  

The ship drifted north in the ice and was eventually crushed beyond repair, forcing the expedition to use lifeboats to reach Elephant Island. All survived this journey, but Shackleton selected only five to travel with him in a lifeboat to South Georgia, where they could organise a rescue. 

Jarvis built a replica of the lifeboat to repeat this epic trip of some 800 miles (1300km) in open sea in sub-zero conditions. The landing on South Georgia then required a trek through unmapped snow-covered mountains and glaciers to reach the whaling station. 

Jarvis’s crew performs this feat as well, though the comparisons with Hurley’s time shows a considerably changed landscape, thanks to global warming. It is in these scenes that Jarvis adds value to Shackleton’s already acknowledged leadership qualities that allowed all men to be rescued alive. 

Rating: Parental guidance advised. 91 minutes. 

CLIPS 

Air
(Amazon Studios) 

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are back as a team in this adrenalin-fuelled story of how sports shoe company Nike pursued basketball star Michael Jordan in 1984 to endorse what became the world’s most coveted sneaker, the Air Jordan. Affleck is also behind the camera as director, again demonstrating his ability to keep a story moving (Gone Baby Gone, Argo). It helps that the mix of business and sport has produced some great movies, such as Jerry Maguire, Money Ball, and Million Dollar Arm. Affleck plays the eccentric co-founder and onetime chief executive of Nike, Steven Knight, while Damon is Nike’s hustling recruitment agent. The rest of the cast are also first rate, from Jason Bateman as the marketing man to Chris Messina as Jordan’s agent, and Viola Davis as the proud and protective mum. The original screenplay is by Alex Convery. 

Rating: Mature audiences 112 minutes.  

John Wick: Chapter 4
(Studio Canal) 

The latest episode in a saga that has proven box office gold demonstrates that a movie comprising mainly action scenes can rise to the occasion. Director Chad Stahelski, this time aided by writers Shay Hatten and Michael Finch, has honed the formula into a slick brand that makes the hitman hero (Keanu Reeves) as distinctive as James Bond, including attempts to kill him off as a character. Although this has resulted in the longest effort yet, the combat choreography is as uncomplicated as the plot and free of distractions. Like Bond, Wick is also a globetrotter as he eludes hordes of assassins in locations that include New York, Osaka, Berlin, and Paris. The Wick series set a new level for set piece action. It also widened its appeal to provide some arty cinematography that wowed even those inured by endless gunfights. 

Rating: R16. 169 minutes. 

Aftersun
(Rialto Distribution) 

A father (Paul Mescal) and his 11-year-old daughter (Frankie Corio) spend a summer at a cheap beach resort on Turkey’s southern coast in late 1990s. She records the holiday with her video camera, with an emphasis on what those older than her are enjoying. This contrasts with the father’s attempt to put on a brave face while coming to terms with a marriage breakup. He even confesses his doubts about his future to a swimming instructor. Writer-director Charlotte Wells, in a debut feature, takes a minimalist approach that requires the viewer to empathise with the differing attitudes of her characters in a story that has autobiographical overtones.  

Rating: Mature audiences. 102 minutes. 

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While the Nazis forced much of Germany’s top talent to Hollywood, much to the latter’s benefit, its studios continued to operate throughout the war. One epic about the Titanic proved to be too realistic, as production delays had undermined its expected morale-boosting purpose.

The movie wasn’t released because the tragedy was too close to Germany’s own changing fortunes. Originally, the purpose was to show the perfidy of the English ship’s owners and their callous disregard for the passengers. Action footage was later used to great effect and without credit in a British production, A Night to Remember, in 1958.

The Chinese government imposes strict quotas and censorship on imported Western movies. Hollywood kowtows to these rules if the Chinese box office – the world’s largest – is critical to the financial success of a blockbuster. But that applies only to a handful of productions.

China is also making its own blockbusters, most of which imitate the patriotic message of the Nazi cinema. This usually means taking an event from history and giving it some spin. For example, several recent Chinese movies give credit to the Communist Party in resisting the Japanese during the 1930s and 1940s when in fact it was Chinese Nationalist forces.

The realm of outer space offers fresh possibilities, without the need to distort history. Liu Cixin’s novel The Wandering Earth has been adapted for the screen in two parts, which have proved Chinese film-making techniques and budgets are equal to anything from Hollywood. Another plus for the Chinese is the eclipse of serious science fiction and disaster movies thanks to the surfeit of comic-book “universes” and Star Wars spinoffs.

The Wandering Earth II (CMC Pictures) is a prequel to the 2019 feature, which is now available on Netflix. Put together, the pair offer dazzling entertainment that will appeal to anyone who enjoyed Gravity, Ad Astra, and The Martian.

The prequel also makes the overall story more comprehensible, as the background shows division in the world community, the UN having been replaced by the UEG (United Earth Government), over how to protect the planet’s future.

One option, pushed by the Americans and its big-tech companies, is conversion to a digital life. The other, backed by China, is the Moving Mountain Project, which means propelling Earth out of its orbit around an expanding sun and finding another solar system.

Audiences of the original will know the latter course is followed. But this doesn’t happen before high-speed elevators from Earth to space stations and moon bases are destroyed amid technical and political disputes.

These events take place over several decades in the near future, with a multinational cast speaking English as well as Chinese. It’s a novel cultural response to the American-centric predecessors such as Armageddon and Deep Impact.

The moral messages that emphasise the collective good over individuals in such movies is ironic, given that both emanate from two different world views.

Rating: Mature audiences. 173 minutes.

CLIPS

Tár
(Universal)

First, two complaints. One was the decision to put the seemingly endless credits of today’s movies at the beginning. But this slow start was nothing compared with the poor-quality digital projection at the commercial screening I attended. This is becoming too common due to cinemas failing to maintain adequate light intensity, leaving audiences to watch a gloomy screen. The viewing burden is heavier when faced with serious film-makers, such as Todd Field, who extend their stories past two hours. His plot is daunting enough without such impediments, as a world-famous orchestral conductor spirals downward in a career-ending series of incidents that don’t seem important at the time. But they gradually coalesce into a melodramatic climax that includes a heady mix of “cancel culture”, identity politics and whether an artist’s personality should affect judgement of their work. Cate Blanchett is at her best in the lead role, in which she explains much about the nuances in classical music for the uninitiated. This includes a scene in which she is interviewed by real-life New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik and rehearsals for a recording performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.

Rating: Mature audiences. 158 minutes.

The Menu
(Searchlight/Disney+)

The cult of the celebrity chef may be celebrated on television, but they are, literally, poison in the cinema. That might be giving away too much of a plot in which Ralph Fiennes prepares an evening of extreme dishes for diners who have paid thousands of dollars to come to his resort island restaurant. Their wealth and pretension are easy targets as Fiennes skewers them with his subversive views on social inequality, bad taste and consumerism. He has researched his guests and has surprises for each of them. But one guest (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a stand-in, who upsets his plan and triggers a ghoulish gastronomic denouement. Director Mark Mylod is best known for his work on the TV series Succession.

Rating: R16. 108 minutes.

Everything Everywhere All At Once
(A24/Amazon Prime)

This hot favourite for the Oscars is built on mundanities facing Asian-American matriarch Michelle Yeoh as she tries to keep her laundromat business afloat amid disputes with her visiting father from China, an unsupportive but well-meaning husband she wants to divorce, a stroppy daughter, and a tax investigator, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. But when writer-directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man) get going, they add Matrix-style “multiverses” to create a dizzying display of cinematic fireworks. Much of this depends on kung fu action, in which Malaysian-born Yeoh made her name (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). For some, this might throw light on the plight of migrants in a new society and how the next generation adapts. But for others, including myself, this is like throwing paint at a canvas in the hope some has meaning. It if wins the big Oscar, this movie could herald a worrying trend that favours the unintelligible over the intelligent.

Rating: R13. 139 minutes.

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Top Gun: Maverick was well out in front, followed by Thor: Love and Thunder, with the latest in the Dr Strange, Minions and Jurassic Park franchises making up the top five. 

The inventive biopic Elvis, which had the advantage of originality, was sixth and headed off The Batman, another deep, dark dive into the background of the comic-book superhero. 

In my top 10, Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical Belfast was 20th at the box office, reflecting his pulling power. His formulaic Death on the Nile ranked 28th at the box office.   

Festivals made a strong comeback with the Scandinavian, French and Italian events doing an excellent promotion job. The World War II-set Farewell, Mr Haffmann, from France, made my top 10. 

The NZ International Film Festival showcased two more of my top 10: the Korean thriller Decision to Leave, and a French adaptation of Balzac’s Restoration epic Lost Illusions.  

Most of the festival’s Cannes lineup didn’t rate a mainstream release. As the screenings and venues had been cut back, this meant that many acclaimed features had little exposure. 

The remainder of my top 10: 

The Eyes of Tammy Faye, with Jessica Chastain’s Oscar-winning performance as the tormented televangelist; 

Benediction, a portrait of the poet Siegfried Sassoon by Terence Davies; 

Drive My Car, a riveting Japanese study of acting and grievance; 

Parallel Mothers, another brilliant piece of storytelling from Spanish director Pablo Almadovar; and 

A Hero, from Iran’s master director Asghar Farhadi. 

My final choice didn’t get to a cinema at all: All Quiet on the Western Front, filmed in German, was available only on Netflix and equal in many ways to 1917, the Bafta-winner for 2019. 

The Kiwi industry produced a handful of releases, most of them modest in content and appeal. But this was not the case with the Māori-themed Muru and Whina, both of which deservedly captured respectable audience support at 23rd and 25th, respectively. 

Three documentaries, on Dame Valerie Adams, the Gloriavale cult, and David Farrier’s Mister Organ, were still attracting audiences at year’s end. 

The major Hollywood studios changed tack during the year on how they treated their streaming services and maximising returns from their box office and subscriber audiences. 

The cinema industry, and many of the directors and stars, insisted that movies continue to have big screen releases before becoming home entertainment. 

Even Netflix and Amazon Prime started to realise this as they had pulled back their budgets and looked to traditional sources of revenue. 

But this didn’t stop many high-quality releases being offered exclusively to home viewers. Some that easily fitted this category were Sally Potter’s The Roads Not Taken, about dementia; Steven Soderberg’s KIMI and No Sudden Move, about surveillance and the motor industry, respectively; Adam Sandler as a basketball scout in Hustle; and Andrew Dominick’s Blonde, loosely based on the life of Marilyn Monroe.  

CLIPS 

The Wonder
(Netflix) 

Irish novelist Emma Donoghue’s claustrophobic thriller Room, about a detained mother and boy, was a movie hit in 2015. Her subsequent novel was set in 1862 about the “fasting girls” phenomena during Ireland’s Great Famine. An 11-year-old refuses food while in a form of religious “rapture” that makes her an object of pilgrims. Chilean director Sebastian Lelio (Gloria) brings an atmospheric mix of awe and scepticism to this adaptation, with Donoghue and Alice Birch (Succession, Normal People) also working on the script. Much is due to the casting of Florence Pugh (Don’t Worry Darling) as a British nurse, hired by local villagers to monitor the girl (Kila Lord Cassidy), who says she lives “on manna from heaven”. Pugh ignores her instructions and tries to break through the girl’s trauma-induced state.  In this, she is assisted by a journalist (Tom Burke), whose kin have died in the famine and who wants to turn the story into one where the “wonder in every Irish child” is saved from starvation. 

Rating: Mature audiences. 109 minutes. 

My Policeman
(Amazon Studios) 

Harry Styles proves his switch from pop singer to actor was no fluke in Don’t Worry Darling. He plays a young policeman in 1950s Brighton, the English seaside resort, who with his girlfriend (Emma Corrin) forms a three-way friendship with a museum curator (David Dawson). Their lives jump forward to the 1990s as the now retired couple take their frail and stroke-ridden friend into their home. In the 1950s, they enjoyed going to art galleries, discussing serious literature, and having fun. But we learn, in the 1990s, that the men’s relationship contained deeper secrets and these emerge as the lies they told each other and themselves are exposed. Based on the novel by Bethan Roberts and directed by Michael Grandage (Genius). 

Rating: R13. 114 minutes 

The Lost King
(Transmission) 

The British film industry has an excellent sideline in adding quirky footnotes to history such as the amateur archaeologist who discovered the Sutton Hoo treasures (The Dig), the inexperienced golfer who entered a major tournament (The Open), and the thief who took a famous painting (The Duke). Now comes the housewife-historian Philippa Langley, who fought against the doubters and academic bureaucrats to resurrect, literally and figuratively, the legitimacy of King Richard II, the last of the Plantagenet monarchs. Specifically, she locates his remains buried in a Leicester church that has become a car park for social workers. Sally Hawkins would not be my ideal for the key role, but she drives the story along, dragging a reluctant husband (Steve Coogan in an uncharacteristic and understated performance) and others who can fulfil her mission. They include her imaginary friend “Richard III” (Harry Lloyd), whom she has seen on the stage in Shakespeare’s heavily distorted Tudor version of history. More liberties are taken with the depiction of the university’s top brass but these pale beside Hawkins’s dogged pursuit of her dream. 

Rating: TBA. 108 minutes. To be released on Boxing Day.      

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This has been the case for several months, thanks to Hollywood studios falling behind on their usual blockbuster attractions, known as tentpoles, and other factors that may not all be Covid-related. 

Netflix and its competitors have been subjected to a budget squeeze, after years of a seemingly bottomless pit of money to lure big name stars and directors away from the big screen with pledges of more artistic freedom and less box office pressure. 

But rather than follow a quantity over quality formula, as many have suggested, Netflix and others have responded positively whenever a show has gained larger than expected public or critical acclaim. 

An example is The White Lotus, a surprising lockdown hit from Warner Bros Discovery’s HBO, and available here on Sky’s Neon and Soho channel. The sequel, which moves the action from a resort in Hawaii to one in Sicily, retains only one couple from the original and replaces the others with a fresh set of faces. 

The formula remains the same, with a death at the start of episode one, a set of guests with built-in conflicts, a blustering hotel staff, and a couple of young women out to better themselves. After two episodes at time of writing, the second series is better than the original.  

Two other major series had less certain outcomes. House of Dragons, also from HBO, was well up to the standard of The Games of Thrones, if not superior, while The Power of the Rings (Amazon Prime) fell short of Peter Jackson’s big screen versions of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. 

While making spectacular use of New Zealand scenery, Rings was pitched at a sub-adult audience, and is unlikely to achieve the cult status of its predecessors. 

Reports from Hollywood say Warner Bros junked some productions on grounds of quality, as streaming subscribers turn out to be just as discerning as those who pay in cinemas. 

Enola Holmes 2 (Netflix) is superior to the original (and a good deal longer). The spunky Millie Bobby Brown as Sherlock’s younger sister was a surprise hit, as a young female who was less analytical, more empathetic, not afraid of a fight, had greater knowledge and showed more courage than her brother, while also retaining his deductive powers.  

The lush Victorian era settings, costumes, and use of direct-to-audience comment, helped lift its appeal from the dour conventional depictions of other Holmes adventures. 

In her second case, Enola helps the “match girls” – the first real examples of women factory workers striking for better pay and conditions, which included banning the use of deadly phosphorus. 

Her eccentric mother, played by Helena Bonham Carter, explains some of Enola’s gifts from her upbringing, while Henry Cavill as Sherlock has little to do but tidy up some of the loose ends. Enola’s comrade in arms, the reformer politician Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge) also makes a welcome return. 

Netflix rating: R13. 129 minutes. 

CLIPS 

All Quiet on the Western Front/Im Westen nichts Neues
(Netflix) 

Few books had a bigger impact on attitudes to war than German author Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, published in 1928. American director Lewis Milestone made a famous movie adaptation in 1930. While it didn’t prevent World War II, it became the touchstone for many other anti-war movies that followed, including a 1979 version by Hollywood director Delmer Daves, and most recently examples such as 1917. This is a first German rendering, by Edward Berger (Deutschland 83), which is true to the graphic horrors of the novel, but is likely to be considered too familiar for jaded audiences who have seen it all before. This version tries to overcome that by adding a new element, peace approaches by the Germans to the French, that is not in the novel. English-speaking audiences may approach it as just another ‘war as hell’ story, though it should be appreciated as an authentic German counterpoint to a disastrous episode in history. 

The Good Nurse 
(Netflix) 

This compelling drama, based on the case of Charles Cullen, who was responsible for possibly hundreds of deaths in private hospitals in the north-eastern states of America in the 1980s and 1990s, rests on two fine actors, Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain. They both play nightshift, intensive care nurses, with Chastain as Amy Loughren, who is entranced by Cullen (Redmayne), but finally exposes him as a serial killer. Police start to investigate one death, forcing Chastain into a dilemma between protecting her own job and health, and her sympathy for Redmayne’s unexplained motives in a profit-driven health system that couldn’t admit wrongdoing and encouraged cover-ups. Directed by Denmark’s Tobias Lindholm (Another Round) and scripted by Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917). 

Netflix rating: Mature audiences. 123 minutes. 

Ali & Ava 
(Moonspun Films) 

One of the crowd-pleasers from the NZ International Film Festival may not have hit the cinemas, but is available for rental. Set in multicultural Bradford, it tracks the relationship between Ali, a disc jockey and landlord of Bangladeshi parents (Adeel Akhtar, who plays a copper in Enola Holmes 1 and 2), and Ava, a stressed Irish housewife played by Claire Rushbrook. She is a teacher aide at the local school where they cross paths through a girl who is one of Ali’s tenants. Music plays a critical role as the couple become attracted to each other and upset conventions in their respective households. These involve Ava’s racist son (Shaun Thomas) and his girlfriend with a new-born, and Ali’s estranged Muslim wife, with whom he still shares quarters. Writer director Clio Barnard (The Selfish Giant) balances their chaotic lives with the occasional opportunities for them to share each other’s problems rather than escape them.  

Rating: Mature audiences. 94 minutes.       

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A more interesting aspect of Netflix’s future is whether it will embrace theatrical releases more widely. At present, only a handful of likely award winners go into cinemas, mainly because it’s a condition for getting Oscars. 

But there’s a more important reason for Netflix to think twice. Movies made by the five biggest Hollywood studios earned more than $US39 billion at the worldwide box office in the past five years (excluding the pandemic year of 2020).  

These revenues go to the likes of Disney and Warner Bros, which have their own streaming services. Netflix has apparently talked to Sony-owned Columbia about shortening the release time after a theatrical release to weeks rather than months. 

Viewers may be divided over Netflix’s philosophy or quantity over quality, but, if it does face lower subscription revenues, then making more movies of higher quality or appeal may be preferable. 

This week’s column features three Netflix original movies, all of which are superior to their equivalents showing in cinemas. 

Top of the list is Blonde, written and directed by Kiwi filmmaker Andrew Dominik (Killing Them Softly, Chopper), based on the 2000 novel by Joyce Carol Oates about the reimagined life of Marilyn Monroe, aka Norma Jeane Baker. (A key theme is that Norma Jeane impersonates a character called Marilyn.) 

Oates is not the first celebrated author to attempt to explain the tragedy of Hollywood’s most famous star of her day, and how she died alone at only 36 in a drug coma. Norman Mailer, Gloria Steinem, Fred Lawrence Guiles, Ben Hecht (who co-wrote the autobiography), and Charles Casillo are among such authors. 

Blonde moves at a fast clip through the early years, noting her (fictional) threesome friendship with the sons of Edward G. Robinson and Charlie Chaplin (Xavier Samuel and Evan Williams, respectively), and her abusive and unhappy marriages to Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) and Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody). Worst of all are her relationships with President John F. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson) and movie mogul “Mr Z” (Darryl F. Zanuck played by David Warshofsky) . 

The dual characterisation of Marilyn/Norma as a victim of these men and her own lack of a father, are played with uncanny likeness by Cuba’s Ana de Armas (No Time to Die, Sergio, Knives Out) – creating a multi-layer of impersonation. 

Marilyn/Norma’s offscreen life is a constant search for her “Daddy”, and is not lacking in yuck factors, such as a forced abortion. Yet the unrelenting bleakness of the story is balanced by songs and scenes from some of her most famous movies, though even some of these are fakes. 

At the conclusion, the viewer may be left confused about whether any explanation of Monroe’s life is possible, or that her inner self beneath the legend can ever be revealed. 

Rating: R18. 166 minutes. 

CLIPS 

Athena 
(Netflix) 

French writer-director Romain Gavras packs so much in the opening 15 minutes, staged as a single take and set in a Paris police station, that everything after it is a comedown. Gavras, son of the acclaimed Greek director Costa-Gavras (Z, The Confession, State of Siege, Missing), also made The World is Yours, a crime thriller. The death of a boy in custody sparks an attack on the police station, with the stolen guns taken back to the Athena housing estate amid continuing street battles. The plot centres on the victim’s three brothers, one of whom is a decorated soldier (Dali Benssalah) and another a charismatic revolutionary leader (Sami Slimane). On the other side of the barricades is a nervous young policeman (Anthony Bajon), who just wants to survive and return home to his twin daughters. If this cocktail isn’t enough, a sociopathic terrorist (Alexis Manenti) has also taken refuge in the estate. 

Rating: R15. 99 minutes. 

Memory 
(Amazon Studios) 

Liam Neeson is back in action mode as a hitman operating across the American-Mexican border at El Paso, also the setting for the pacesetting thriller Sicario (2015). The story is based on a Belgian novel, De Zaac Alzheimer (The Alzheimer Case), by Jef Geeraerts, and filmed in 2003. At 70, Neeson is following Jeff Bridges, who played a similarly memory-challenged fake priest in Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) at age 69. Both movies also have a teenage girl victim whom the old guys are trying to save. Guy Pearce is a law enforcer who is investigating child trafficking, and finds his job complicated by Neeson, who is being paid by a crime cartel boss (Monica Bellucci, in an English-speaking role). New Zealand-born director Martin Campbell, a Bond specialist (Golden Eye, Casino Royale), is on form, though some suggest it’s time for Neeson to give up his gunslinging for more sedate roles. 

Rating: R16. 113 minutes. 

Mr Harrigan’s Phone 
(Netflix) 

Like Neeson and Bridges, Donald Sutherland is still taking on important roles at an amazing 87. Among recent ones are Moonfall, The Burnt Orange Heresy and as billionaire J. Paul Getty in the 10-part series Trust (2018). The title role is also a reclusive and mean-spirited billionaire, who befriends a motherless boy (played as a child by Colin O’Brien and as a teen by Jaeden Martell). He reads Harrigan classic novels by Dickens, Conrad, Dostoevsky and even D.H. Lawrence. Set in 2003, just as the iPhone is taking hold, Harrigan still has the prescience and ruthlessness that made his fortune. He predicts an Internet-connected smart phone, given to him when a lottery ticket he gives the teenager pays off, will change the world of investing, and much else. After Harrigan dies, his phone continues to receive messages. This is a Stephen King story, so weird things start happening in the capable hands of writer-director John Lee Hancock (The Highwaymen, The Founder, Saving Mr Banks). 

Rating: Mature audiences. 106 minutes.     

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Few parents of baby boomers would have left New Zealand high schools without being able to recite some of the works by Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. Similar groups of poets emerged in France, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. 

They changed the way later generations viewed war from being about heroic deeds, military glory and inspired leadership. Instead, they emphasised how mechanised weapons, poisonous gases and mass slaughter were responsible for some 19 million deaths of young soldiers and innocent civilians. 

Of course, this did not prevent a further world war which had even larger and more tragic consequences. But this was fought in different circumstances and for justifiable reasons. 

British writer-director Terence Davies has produced a series of rare but carefully crafted movies, starting with Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. This, and an adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s bleak The Deep Blue Sea (2011), were set during or just after World War II. 

He also compiled a documentary, Of Time and the City (2008), about the history and transformation of his birthplace, Liverpool, and The Long Day Closes (1992), about his childhood.  

Sunset Song (2015), based on Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novels, spans a Scottish woman’s life through the loss of her husband in World War I and beyond. 

The 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson was the subject of A Quiet Passion (2016). She was noted for her unconventional life of seclusion and most of her poetry wasn’t published until after her death.   

Sassoon, who unlike many of his contemporaries survived the war, is the main character in Benediction (Rialto), which is set in two periods of his life. The first is his wartime experience and hospitalisation in Scotland for “shell shock” to avoid a court martial for his anti-war views expressed in the 1917 Soldier’s Declaration. The hospital’s psychiatrist (Ben Daniels) is a closeted ally. 

The second period precedes his marriage to Hester Gatty and conversion to Catholicism some 30 years later. This is signalled in an early scene in a church where the young Sassoon (Jack Lowden) questions his later self (Peter Capaldi) about religion. 

The marriage is unsuccessful, as Davies introduces elements of his own life in growing up as a gay Catholic. By contrast, Sassoon’s wartime relationship with Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson), who was killed in the war’s final week, is sympathetic and provides a platform for their poetic works.  

The post-war years show tempestuous affairs with the likes of Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine) in a society where being queer was common among the artists and writers of the time. Gatty, played by Kate Phillips and Gemma Jones, is faced with the impossible task of satisfying Sassoon’s need for redemption as a survivor, as is their exasperated son George (Richard Goulding). 

Rating: Mature audiences. 137 minutes. 

CLIPS 

Don’t Worry Darling
(Warner Bros) 

For many people, being trapped in middle class oasis of 1950s America, with its idealisation of nuclear families and suburban living, would not be a bad thing. Flash cars, safe neighbourhoods and constant desert sun are a reality in places such as Palm Springs. But to Hollywood, this is a nightmare that houses evil doings. The Stepford Wives (2004) is the model and is updated here as a misogynistic corporate trap for freedom-loving feminists. Florence Pugh is familiar with entrapment (Lady Macbeth, Midsommar) and puts the heat on her executive husband (Harry Styles) when she sees a mysterious plane crash. She asks uncomfortable questions of the utopian community’s cult-like leader (Chris Pine), who preaches Jordan Peterson’s self-help philosophy rather than Gloriavale’s twisted Christianity. If restricted to a story about willing victims of mind control, and the costs of conformity, this would have had some originality. But its descent into The Handmaid’s Tale territory of repression removes credibility, leaving only its lavish visuals. Director Olivia Wilde (Booksmart) is also in front of the camera as one of the wives. Katie Silberman’s script is based on a story by Carey and Shane Van Dyke. 

Rating: R13. 123 minutes. 

Decision to Leave
(Korean Film Festival) 

Korean director Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden, The Little Drummer Girl) picked up the director’s prize at Cannes for this psychological crime thriller. It’s another story of a good cop falling for one of his suspects and making the kind of mistakes that happen when officers replace logic with emotion. It develops into a nifty piece of genre work, though heavily influenced by Korean references that will not resonate with foreign audiences. The detective’s marriage becomes a loose arrangement after he meets a suspect, played by China’s Tang Wei (Lust, Caution), whose series of husbands meet untimely ends. Her enigmatic allure is enhanced by her speaking more in Chinese than Korean. She draws the detective (Park Haeil) into a web that is the hallmark of noir setups that leave you guessing until the end. 

Rating: Mature audiences. 138 minutes  

Ticket to Paradise
(Universal) 

Julia Roberts and George Clooney have been partners in crime on several occasions – Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and Ocean’s Twelve (2004), Confessions of a Dangerous Man (2002) and Money Monster (2016). Roberts’s stardom was launched by Pretty Woman (1990), a romantic drama, while Clooney still fits the bill as Hollywood’s leading man for the older generation. The attractions of Bali more than compensate for a weak plot in which they both try to foil their daughter’s desire to marry a local seaweed farmer. Played by the diminutive Arielle Carber-O’Neill, she is the only worthwhile fruit from a marriage that lasted just five years. The pace slows from their busy, combative lives in New York when they get to the island paradise for a traditional Balinese wedding. What follows is more a tourist advertisement than a believable romantic comedy in which both couples opt to renounce their former lifestyles. 

Rating: Mature audiences. 104 minutes. 

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Led by Mahatma Gandhi, it became the symbolic start of anti-colonial resistance using non-violent methods. The “salt march” was one of the central events in Gandhi (1982). Some 22 years later, Selma depicted protest marches in America’s Deep South, led by Martin Luther King in 1965.

Now New Zealand has its own dramatisation of the Māori land march of 1975 which, like those other two, recorded positive social change. The salt march lasted 24 days and covered 385km. Selma to Montgomery, the state capital of Alabama, is just 87km. But the North Island hikoi (Te Roopu O’Te Matakite) was 1000km and lasted a month, from September 13 to October 14.

Whina (Transmission) follows two earlier documentaries, and a biography by Michael King, and presents the life of Dame Whina Cooper in a way that loses nothing in its impact, compared with the two big budget movies.

The acting by a professional cast, direction by James Napier Robertson (The Dark Horse) and Paula Whetu Jones, and the photography by Leon Narbey, are excellent. Given a rich background of personal incidents, controversial political events, and a climax involving 5000 marchers in Wellington, it would be surprising if this wasn’t achieved.

Born Hōhepine (Josephine) Te Wake into a Catholic family, Whina’s precocious talents were enhanced by attending St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College in Napier from 1907. On returning, she ran the co-op store at Panguru in the Hokianga, and taught at a local school. She was also a housekeeper at the Rawene presbytery.

An early sign of her activist career was a protest over plans to drain mudflats, followed by marriage to surveyor Richard Gilbert (Richard Te Are) without community approval. They moved away, but returned after a Catholic priest provided funds for them to buy the family farm and store.

In a protest at being unable to speak on a marae, Whina (Miriama McDowell) built a parish hall, while embarking on land development schemes. A scandal ensued when she became pregnant to a land officer, Bill Cooper, whom she married after Gilbert’s death in 1935.

This marriage was not official until 1941 after Cooper (Vinnie Bennett) was divorced and converted to Catholicism. The rift with the community lasted until his death in 1949, forcing Whina and her children to leave for Auckland in 1951.

These events are told in rapid succession as the then middle-aged Whina continued her campaigns, which included the founding of the Māori Women’s Welfare League. By 1956, it had 300 branches throughout the country, with Whina using her forceful “let’s do it” manner rather than waiting for a consensus.

Whina (played in her older years by Rena Owen) gave up public life in 1974, moving back to Panguru, but that lasted just a year before she was asked to lead the hikoi, aged 80. It’s a compelling tale, often told through flashbacks, and packing a lot of detail into its running time.

Rating: Parental guidance advised. 115 minutes.

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