STACK February 2016 Issue 136

24 / 89

THE DANISH GIRL
Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl is superficially based on the lives of Danish
painter Lili Elbe and her one-time wife, Gerda Wegener. In truth, the film is
based on David Ebershoff’s novel of the same name, which was an almost
fully fictionalised portrayal of Elbe and Wegener. Elbe, formally Einar Elbe,
was one of the first people in the world to undergo sexual reassignment
surgery. That’s fact, although much of the film isn’t. Which ultimately begs
the question – why use Elbe and Wegener’s real names when so much of the
film is fabricated? It’s a common misstep in cinema the world over, in which
filmmakers fear truth so much they contrive events in order to make their
work more palatable for a wide audience. In reality, it’s misleading. When are
you watching a film about Einar Elbe that isn’t really about Einar Elbe? When
you’re watching The Danish Girl. The production is proficient yet uninspired.
Unfortunately, it’s exactly the variety of work you might expect from a film
by the director of The King’s Speech , starring the lead from The Theory of
Everything, about the world’s first gender realignment. However, there’s still
a great deal to be admired about The Danish Girl, such is the professionalism
of the people involved in the production. It’s just not particularly inspired
filmmaking, and it smacks of prestige-mongering. John Roebuck
SPOTLIGHT
Good newspaper films demonstrate just how problematic truth can be. Great
newspaper films pursue truth almost as much as the journalists that inspired
them. Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men and David Fincher’s Zodiac
are examples of films that largely jettisoned the sensationalism that’s usually
synonymous with Hollywood productions in favour of fact and authenticity. Truth
is stranger than fiction – and it’s certainly more compelling. Tom McCarthy’s
Spotlight, which follows the story of a team of Boston-based investigative
journalists exploring corruption in the Catholic church relating to priests molesting
young children, is largely disinterested in embracing puffery. It might not be
entirely devoid of stylistic embellishments, but it's never smothered by them. It’s
not an easy topic for a film. “How do you say no to God, right?” one character
quips. Spotlight engages intellectually, allowing the viewer to dictate their
emotional response themselves. The risk of fostering sentimentality in a film
that promotes thought is that it can disable any established educated authority.
People don’t like to be told how to feel, and McCarthy avoids this pitfall entirely
by embracing fact, not judgement. More remarkable is how effectively that fact
is conveyed. There’s an enormous amount of complex information involved in
Spotlight, yet the result is as illuminating as it is engrossing. John Roebuck
RELEASED: Now Showing DIRECTOR: Tom Hooper CAST: Eddie Redmayne,
Alicia Vikander, Amber Heard RATING: M
RELEASED: Now Showing DIRECTOR: Tom McCarthy CAST: Mark Ruffalo,
Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams RATING: M
RATING KEY:
Wow!
Good
Not bad
Meh Woof!
ROOM
This is a film with the best of intentions and the most maddening of executions.
Director Adam McKay, generally known for comedies like Anchorman and
Talladega Nights, is undeniably attempting to make a convoluted and largely
sluggish topic – finance – accessible and compelling. And yet the tools he employs
to lend his film clarity ultimately have the opposite effect. The Big Short is largely
concerned with three separate parties, each at varying degrees of involvement
in Wall Street culture, who predicted the devastating financial crisis of 2007-08.
There’s very little narrative, with the film favouring education over entertainment.
That only becomes a problem with McKay suffocates his delivery of info with
hyper-frenetic filmmaking; loud music and erratic cuts distract from important
material. Celebrity cameos – designed to make the data more digestible – by-and-
large mislead the viewer. By the time we’ve realised that Margot Robbie is
playing herself, naked in a bath and drinking champagne, it’s too late to absorb
the financial details that she’s explaining. There are no heroes on Wall Street. As
one of the characters suggests late in the film, interest in money ultimately leads
to a disinterest in the things that make life so wonderful. With the characters so
unappealing and the details so murky, The Big Short leaves a broad impression of
the financial crisis that ought to have been far more enlightening. John Roebuck
RELEASED: Now Showing DIRECTOR: Adam McKay CAST: Christian Bale,
Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling RATING: M
A mother (Brie Larson) and her five-year-old son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), live
a cloistered existence in a small garden shed, with a skylight providing their
only glimpse of the outside world. "Room" is the only world young Jack has
ever known – his mother was abducted seven years ago by a psycho (Sean
Bridgers, who's done this kind of thing before in The Woman) and has been held
captive in the shed ever since. When the opportunity for escape finally presents
itself, their bid for freedom inevitably comes with life-changing consequences
for both of them. It's the kind of story that far too often makes headlines,
and is frequently the fodder of horror/torture thrillers. But Room is neither
sensationalist nor exploitative – it's a sensitive, suspenseful and sometimes
heartbreaking look at how such an experience impacts the lives of the victims
after they re-enter society, beyond the tell-all interview to a talk-show host.
Larson is terrific as the mother whose unconditional love for her son (despite
the circumstances in which he was conceived) sustains her through years
of captivity and abuse, and will most likely win the Oscar. But she's equally
matched by Tremblay, who invests Jack with both wide-eyed wonder at the
real world he's never known and a troubled countenance that hints at the
psychological scars left by the ordeal. Give the boy an Oscar too. Scott Hocking
RELEASED: Now Showing DIRECTOR: Lenny Abrahamson CAST: Brie Larson,
Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridgers RATING: M
THE BIG SHORT
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24 FEBRUARY 2016
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