Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017)

Score: 4 / 5

I'm not sure we wanted a movie about Gloria Grahame. She was never that great, always in Marilyn Monroe's shadow on screen and in life, and there's that icky story about her affair with her 13-year-old stepson. But here we are, and thankfully this film follows the true-to-life account of Peter Turner's affair with the aging actress in a manner not unlike My Week with Marilyn. It's a sweet, warm, and ultimately sappily sentimental picture about love, death, and legacy, and that's all it needs to be.

Of course, it's helmed by Annette Bening who, as usual, shines brilliantly as Grahame, with her affected, lilting voice and lingering eyes. Countering her is Jamie Bell as Turner in what might be his best performance yet (certainly his sexiest!). Theirs is a sordid love story, rote and often banal in this film, one that heavily relies on clichés to finish the job. There are also a surprising amount of mommy issues in this picture; while that invites Julie Walters and Vanessa Redgrave in for supporting roles, it didn't do much to endear the characters to this viewer.

As a film about art and the tireless effort of artists to do what they love, I enjoyed it. As a film about an unlikely love affair between a mostly unlikable, conceited older woman and and endlessly likable, confident and giving younger man, I found it problematic but pleasing to watch. As a historical account of Grahame's last days, I don't know and I don't care about its accuracy. I'd be remiss not to praise director Paul McGuigan (Sherlock, Victor Frankenstein, Luke Cage), however, for some amazing work, as well as the cinematographer for the same: My favorite moments occur when the narrative jumps through time in a single take, as Turner walks through a door and the light changes and the scene changes but there are no editing cuts. Those were lovely.

It would be a charming movie to watch on a date, at night, in a beach house maybe or after a warm Italian dinner; it's just sweet and simple and, yes, pretty damn sad.

IMDb: Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

Victor Frankenstein (2015)

Score: 3.5 / 5

I don't know that I've ever seen a Gothic comedy before, but this might be one. Based on corruptions of the titular horror character, this film is a sort of Frankenstein's monster itself, a hodgepodge mishmash of themes and tropes that, stitched together with simple and silly thread, skip off to a dark ruined castle to live happily never after. It's horror and comedy, science fiction and period drama, whipped up together with a frenzied cinematic approach not unlike film adaptations of graphic novels (I would compare its style to, for example,2003's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, or even the 2009 Sherlock Holmes). It's got a strange sort of Grand Guignol flavor amidst its kinetic action and dramatic charm. And if that doesn't sound interesting to you, stop reading and go watch the holiday Hallmark specials.

I'm not saying the script is very good. It strikes a rather uncertain tonal chord, and wallows in the third act, when the Big Picture themes come to a rain-drenched, violent head. But the first half of the film is delightful, bouncing between the great talents of a surprising array of actors, including Charles Dance, Jessica Brown Findlay, and a deliciously wicked Andrew Scott as the religious police inspector hell-bent on stopping Frankenstein's sacrilegious experiments. But the real stars here are, well, the stars: James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe are miracle-workers here, reviving a flaccid script and generously supplying it with wit, charm, and no small amount of homoerotic undertones. If you had told me that Professor Xavier and Harry Potter would have mad chemistry, I would have laughed at you, but now I've seen the error of my ways.

The opening sequence is by far my favorite in the film. An aspiring romantic, nameless hunchback (Radcliffe) is slaving away in a London circus until the girl he loves (Findlay) falls during her aerial routine. He saves her with a doctor in the audience (McAvoy), who recognizes the hunchback's medical prowess and rescues him from the cruel circus. The sequence sets up the fevered pace of the film, its colorful and campy style, and the gritty nature of the violent material. Immediately after, the kindly doctor takes the hunchback to his home, names him Igor, and treats his physical plights by draining a cyst and fashioning a harness to right his posture. I found it hard to stop giggling between Radcliffe's frightened vulnerability, McAvoy's ferocity and speed (à la Rob Downey Jr.), the one-liners and action-genre camerawork, and the stylized animation that is meant to represent the medical diagrams through which these characters view their world.

Perhaps the reason I so liked the film is that, even when the script descends into sentiment and stupidity, the sheer spectacle of the performances and visual style remain intensely silly. That is to say, I could scarcely judge the stupid because I was so charmed by the silly. The film feels like it could be a mockery of the whole genre, a disturbed satire of the Frankenstein myth, or a sensational fever dream of artists who understand that spectacle, when handled intelligently, can supersede poor content.

IMDb: Victor Frankenstein