A movie based on a real art theft

  A portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Francisco de Goya disappears from the British National Gallery in London during the summer of 1961.

  Sounds like the set-up for a caper movie revolving around a carefully detailed scene in which cunning thieves find a way into the museum and a way out with the famous painting.

  But director Roger Michell has something different in mind in The Duke, the story of a real-life theft involving a 61-year-old man who never met a cause he wasn't willing to stand up for. 

 When we meet Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent), he has focused considerable passion on what seems an exceedingly narrow crusade. Bunton doesn't want to pay for the TV license that allowed British TV watchers to access the BBC in the 1960s. He's disabled his set so that it can't receive the BBC and sees no reason why he should be required to have a license.

   Bunton claimed he had no interest in profiting from the Wellington  heist, insisting instead that he kidnapped the painting and planned to use it as a bargaining chip to persuade the government to fund access to the BBC for the poor and for elderly pensioners.

  He was less a robber than a quasi-imaginative Robin Hood who wrote plays that brought him little response other than a copious supply of rejection letters from the same BBC that he refused to pay for.

     Michell, who died in September of last year, is best known for movies such as Notting Hill and Venus. It's no surprise then that the director, working from a screenplay by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman, has made a character comedy that places itself solidly in the British working class where we meet Bunton's family -- his long- suffering wife (Helen Mirren) and his son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead). 

     The Buntons reside in unfashionable Newcastle where Bunton, who ultimately returned the painting, loses jobs and conducts solitary protests. 

     Michell spends little time on the actual theft, opting to showcase Broadbent's performance as a good-hearted, obstinate fellow whose beliefs, at least as depicted in the movie, might have been authored for a Frank Capra screenplay. 

     We're meant to look out for one another. I am you. You are me, etc.

      Broadbent and Mirren play an admirable duet in a movie that has no trouble embracing an old-fashioned spirit as it ambles toward a courtroom scene in which Bunton's barrister (a fine Matthew Goode) offers a moving defense of his client.

      It's unlikely that The Duke will find a place in the pantheon of great movies. It can't quite shake its obvious sentiment and a story element about a daughter that the Buntons lost doesn't quite find the emotional resonance Michell may have wanted.

     But the movie qualifies as a solid — if small — entertainment that gives Broadbent a showcase role. Broadbent previously worked with Michell in Le Week-End, a 2013 movie about an aging couple facing up to some of life's disappointments during a trip to Paris.

     Sadly, Michell's untimely departure -- he was 65 when he died -- will prevent another collaboration. Consider it a loss.*

*If you’re a faithful reader of Denerstein Unleashed, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been uncharacteristically quiet of late. As a result of knee-replacement surgery, I have not seen some of the most recent high-profile movies nor have I been able to do much writing. I’m slowly working my way back and, although I’m probably going to be reviewing fewer movies for a while, will resume more regular publication in May.

    

Bob's Cinema Diary: 9/17/20 -- 'Blackbird' and 'The Nest'

The Nest

Director Sean Durkin returns to the screen after a long hiatus. His last movie was  2011's Martha Marcy May Marlene. With The Nest, Durkin travels back to the 1980s for a look at a marriage struggling to survive the upheaval of a transatlantic move. Jude Law  (as Rory) and Carrie Coon (as Allison) star as a husband and wife who have fallen off the same page even before they move to London. She loves their suburban life in the US. He’s too ambitious to be content. She runs a riding school: He's a commodities trader. Rory and Allison have two kids: a daughter (Oona Roche) from Allison's previous marriage and a son (Charlie Shotwell) from the couple's current marriage. Not only does Rory drag his family across the ocean, he soon runs out of funds. He vastly overestimates his ability to persuade his London boss (Michael Culkin) to merge his company with an American firm, a development that ensures that Rory won't be able to  afford the Surrey estate he impulsively rented for the family. Late in the movie, a taxi driver asks Rory what he does for a living. "I pretend to be rich,'' says Rory, who by this time has entered a state of dejected realization: The rungs on the social ladder he's climbing have begun to collapse. As the horse-loving Allison, Coon embodies the emotional volatility of an '80s woman who doesn't always listen to her better judgment. Initially charming, Rory refuses to acknowledge his limitations and, in Law's hands, reaches a state of hollowed-out desperation. Durkin, who has no interest in feel-good sentiment, courageously brings his movie to a conclusion marked as much by exhaustion and defeat as by anything that might be called reconciliation. 

Blackbird

There are few more familiar dramatic conceits than this:  A family gathers for a special occasion only to have soul-wrenching secrets revealed. Blackbird follows such a traditional map but adds a disturbing twist. Mom (Susan Sarandon) is dying of ALS. In response, Sarandon's Lily has decided to end her life. She wants to see her family one more time before drinking the lethal concoction that will enable her to avoid a nightmarish end to an otherwise fulfilling life. As the story unfolds, director Roger Michell introduces us to Lily's family: daughters played by Kate Winslet and Mia Wasikowska and a husband portrayed by an underutilized Sam Neill. Winslet's Jennifer arrives at Lily’s seaside home with her husband (Rainn Wilson) and teenage son (Anson Boon). Lindsay Duncan turns up as Lily's best friend.  Christian Torpe's screenplay boasts finely wrought moments that are well-executed by a fine cast, tense encounters between the sisters, for example. But the screenplay adds a few reveals too many and even a cast this strong can't always compensate for a lack of dramatic crackle. At the same time, Michell eventually finds the emotional power and the deep sadness that accompanies Lily's decision; just because it's the right choice for her doesn't make its irrevocability any less harrowing.

Paris, beautiful; their marriage, rocky

Acting lifts Le Week-End to higher level

Meg and Nick Burrows are too young to be preoccupied with the prospect of imminent demise and too old to entertain delusions about where their lives are headed.

After 30 years of marriage, they've decided -- perhaps because Nick pushed for it -- to celebrate their anniversary weekend in Paris.

That sounds romantic, but Meg (Lindsay Duncan) and Nick (Jim Broadbent) are in a marriage that has lost much of its sparkle.

Their grown son has become a human barnacle, sponging on their fragile finances. A professor at a second-rate college, Jim has just lost his job for running afoul of the PC police, and Meg, also a teacher, has given up on sex.

Written by Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Launderette) and directed by Roger Michell (Notting Hill), Le Week-End is not an exercise in Bergman-like despair: It's a comedy -- albeit one that tastes bitter around the edges.

The Paris trip sours from the start. The couple checks into a hotel that depresses Meg. She instantly detests its brown decor. Nick tries to keep up her spirits, but Meg stalks out, forcing the couple to take a budget-busting suite at a luxury hotel.

Duncan's Meg can be cruel and remote; Broadbent's Nick tries to solider on as he weighs the inescapable failure of a life that never fulfilled its promise.

In a clear-cut case of insult-to-injury, the couple runs into Morgan, an American who knew Jim from shared days at Cambridge. Le Week-End offers Goldblum an opportunity to do some his best acting in years.

He's playing an arrogant academic who has just published a book. He lives in Paris with the adoring wife, the young woman for whom he left the U.S. and his first wife. His hippy son (Olly Alexander) has arrived for a weekend visit.

Morgan enjoys his status -- even though he's aware enough to know that there'll come a point when his young, pregnant wife (Judith Davis) runs out of adoration, and he'll be left exposed, a pompous, self-absorbed man.

Kureishi is a smart writer who pushes his characters into one uncomfortable situation after another, some of them leavened by the wit of the dialogue.

A dinner party scene at which Nick makes a startling speech almost goes over the top, but Nathalie Durand's cinematography, Michell's generosity in putting Paris on display (its beauty may be a taunt to Meg and Nick) and the wit and candor of the performances make Le Week-End a trip well worth taking.