Review: "Suffragette"

In America we think of the suffragette movement in glowing, benevolent terms. Our public consciousness invokes halcyon memories of a non-violent, high-minded debate in which brave women who advocated for the right to vote were subjected to little more than frowning disapproval and comments about their diminished prospects for marriage, with jail time for a hardened few.

In actuality the movement took decades and included police brutality, mass arrests, hunger strikes, forced feedings and the separation of mothers from children. “Suffragette” is an attempt to shine a light on the darker, grittier side of the crusade, focusing specifically on a small group of working-class British women who kicked the push for the vote into high gear in their country.

It’s a well-intentioned film, which jumps through the tropes of the ‘inspiring historical drama’ genre 1-2-3. It takes miserly few chances with its story and characters. The actors are an impressive lot and the production values are fine, but it’s a rather dour affair with a scarcity of surprises.

Carey Mulligan plays a familiar type of protagonist: the indifferent youngster who falls in with the rebellious crowd, gets caught up by circumstance and ends up as hardest of the hardcore.

Her character is entirely made up, as are all the others but two: Meryl Streep has a bit role (two or three scenes) as Emmeline Pankhurst, the real-life founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union, who essentially operates as the leader-in-exile, flitting from place to place in secrecy for fear of arrest. And Natalie Press plays Emily Davison, a tertiary figure who only becomes important late in the proceedings.

Mulligan is Maud Watts, a 24-year-laundress who keeps her head down in 1912 London. She started working at 12 and was made forewoman at 20. Her factory is a brutish sweat shop, complete with a piggish manager (Geoff Bell) who sees taking liberties with the young girls as a perk of the job. Her husband Sonny (Ben Whishaw) is a kindly but sheepish fellow who also works there. They have an adorable scamp of a son, are desperately poor but essentially happy.

The government is taking testimony from working women about getting the vote, and Maud is conscripted at the last minute to fill in for a fiery co-worker (Anne-Marie Duff) who has to demur. Her plain-spoken words seemingly move the chief official, but needless to say more challenges await.

She makes the rounds befriending the suffragette crew, including a wealthy benefactor (Romola Garai) and Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter), a female doctor who’s been jailed nine times and repeatedly urges more militant action, including breaking shop windows and blowing up mail boxes.

(Fun fact: Bonham Carter is the great-granddaughter of H. H. Asquith, who was Prime Minister during this time and a noted opponent of voting rights for women. Take that, great-grandpa!)

Brendan Gleeson has a nice turn as Steed, a cunning police inspector who outfoxes the suffragettes for a time. He views Maud as just an impressionable young woman and targets her for recruitment as an informer.

Things go on as you might expect. Maud is shocked when peaceful channels prove fruitless, agrees to more strident acts, is jailed and disgraced, her husband is mortified and warns her not to defy him again, the heroines make quotable pronouncements off the cuff, etc.

“You want me to respect the law? Then make the law respectable!” goes a typical refrain.

I didn’t dislike “Suffragette,” but it feels so workmanlike and even drab at times. Director Sarah Gavron and screenwriter Abi Morgan (“The Iron Lady”) might have been better served by focusing on actual historical figures instead of concocting a bunch of make-believe folks. These characters feel less like people and more conduits for a message, however noble it might be.

Review: "Before I Go to Sleep"

"Before I Go to Sleep" isn't terribly original, which doesn't necessarily mean that a film won't be any good -- but in this case, it does.

The problem with this psychological thriller starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth is that it contains no surprises. Even when the story is trying to shock us with a twist, we've already guessed everything long ago. Watching it is a 92-minute exercise in waiting for the movie to arrive.

It's not helped by a story that borrows heavily from "Memento." And by "borrow," I basically mean "steals the entire premise and narrative dynamic." Kidman plays Christine, who wakes up at age 40 thinking she's still in her mid-20s, because every night all the new memories she's acquired during that day flee from her mind.

She leaves notes and pictures for herself so can assimilate every morning, but also clues suggesting that a crime has taken place. Despite not being able to remember anything from the previous day, Christine begins to investigate the matter, which resulted in her being left severely beaten and with her faulty memory. She uses a digital camera to make a video diary to instruct herself on her latest discoveries.

If you'll recall from "Memento" -- it's been 14 years, but: spoiler alert! -- the amnesiac main character was actually being manipulated by others with nefarious intent. It becomes pretty clear that the same thing is going on here, so the question is figuring out who it is.

There are only two potential culprits: Christine's long-suffering husband, Ben (Firth), and her psychiatrist, Dr. Nasch (Mark Strong). She has good reasons to suspect both. The doctor takes the odd steps of calling her at home every morning to trigger her memory recall, and also picks her up in his car for treatment. Nasch insists that she not tell her husband about their sessions.

Ben, meanwhile, is a ball of half-truths and nervous energy. He insists he keeps information from Christine to protect her -- such as the fate of a close friend (Anne-Marie Duff) who apparently abandoned Christine after her injury, and another more devastating matter. He would seem to be a devoted husband -- he has to essentially convince her to fall in love with him on a daily basis -- but there are flashes of anger that are troubling.

Writer/director Rowan Joffe adapted the novel by S.J. Watson. He generally elicits solid performances out of his cast, though his handle on pacing and mood are lackluster. Often the movie is just a dull parade of phone calls, Kidman poring through photographs or documents, and similar expository shuffling of the cards.

I had problems with the particulars of Christine's condition, which are never satisfactorily explained. She has full recall of her activities throughout the day, but sometime while sleeping everything gets flushed. Has she tried staying awake all night to see what happens? If she wakes up to pee at 2 a.m., will her memory of the previous day still be there or not? What about 5 a.m.? Midnight? If she takes a nap in the afternoon, does that trigger the brain dump?

It's not that I find the notion of memory loss implausible. After all, I've watched hundreds of movies that I almost immediately forgot all about. This is destined to become one of them. Maybe if I just lay down for a little while; I am pretty tired...

............................

"Before I Go to Sleep" isn't terribly original, which doesn't necessarily mean that

Review: "Nowhere Boy"

"Nowhere Boy" distinguishes itself as much more than a drippy "before they were stars" biopic of John Lennon, and manages to wade into some actual soulful territory. How accurate a depiction it is of Lennon's teen years is impossible to say. But even if we can't assess its historical genuineness, the movie is faithful to its own truth.

It succeeds as a moving story of a boy, expressively played by Aaron Johnson, whose life would have been interesting enough to justify a movie about it even if he'd never gone on to be one of The Beatles.

Johnson, who affected an American accent so believable in this spring's "Kick-Ass" that many of us were shocked to discover he's British, nails the Liverpool speech patterns of Lennon and his peers. His features are a far sight too pretty to resemble the pinch-faced Lennon, but more importantly we believe he could be Lennon -- particularly later in the story when he acquires a swelled head bigger than the pompadour he copied off Elvis.

His Aunt Mimi is played by Kristin Scott Thomas, doing that rigid, emotionally closed-off British thing that few do as well as Scott Thomas. Early in the story she loses her husband George (David Threlfall), who encouraged John's playful side, leaving the disparate pair stuck together in the cramped confines of Mendips house.

John has lived with his aunt and uncle as long as he can remember, though there are some hazy recollections of trouble involving his parents. When his mother Julia (a marvelous Anne-Marie Duff) shows up at George's funeral, it's an excuse from them to reconnect.

John is shocked to learn his mother lives just a short walk away. At first, he's enthralled with the renewed relationship. His mother, red-haired and vibrant, is passionate about life and music. Soon he's ditching aunt Mimi to spend more and more time with his mum.

Eventually, dark secrets about Julia and his own past rise up to complicate things, and John finds himself estranged from both his aunt and mother. He funnels that anger, of course, into music.

Julia introduces John to rock 'n' roll and teaches him to play the banjo. The scene where she sings him "Maggie May," a ribald tune about a whore that is something of an unofficial anthem of Liverpool, is pure magic. At that moment, with John's eyes twinkling, we can see the boy's fate is sealed.

John launches a band called The Quarrymen that plays a few local gigs, and soon attracts the attention of 15-year-old Paul McCartney, a musical prodigy whose expertise on the guitar puts their three-chord progressions to shame. I'd have said Thomas Brodie Sangster was too baby-faced to play Paul, but if you look at photos from the era the resemblance is actually fairly spot-on.

Although it's not the central dynamic of the film -- John's relationship with his two mother figures is -- the interaction between John and Paul is interesting. Despite being younger and subservient to John's leadership of the band, Paul manages to subtly influence John about both his musical and personal direction. He even introduces a friend, George Harrison (Sam Bell), into the band.

"Nowhere Boy" is based on a memoir by Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird, adapted for the screen by Matt Greenhalgh. It was skillfully directed by Sam Taylor-Wood -- who is engaged to her star Johnson, despite being more than twice his age. (I'm not judging, just reporting that which is interesting.)

I should note that Johnson did his own singing for the film. He doesn't quite sound like Lennon, but he sounds good enough to have become Lennon. One scene, where The Quarrymen are recording "In Spite of All the Danger" at a two-bit studio, is a delightful aural feast.

Ultimately, "Nowhere Boy" is less about the artistry of John Lennon than the boy who had a yawning hole in his life that he desperately needed to fill. Music just happened to fit the bill.

3 stars out of four