A grim look at the American West

A Prayer for the Dying takes a grim look at a doom-struck western town that’s trying to expand in the years just after the Civil War. Director Dara Van Dusen, an American who lives in Norway and trained at the Polish National Film School in Lodz, has made one of the year’s darkest films, telling the story of a town residents struck by a lethal plague of diphtheria -- not that things were going all that well before that. Jacob (Johnny Flynn) does triple duty. He’s the bicycle-riding sheriff, undertaker, and pastor of the sparsely populated town. John C. Reilly, in another fine performance, plays the town’s doctor. Kristine Kujath Thorp portrays Jacob’s wife, a mom who breaks down emotionally when illness claims her child.  The movie tests one’s endurance — at least it did mine.  But if you stick with Prayer, you may find that it gets under your skin.  The film’s naturalistic images and dusty earth tones become a mask that Van Dusen peels away as she builds toward images of hellish horror. By the end, a locomotive becomes a monster surrounded by the red smoke of encroaching fires that threaten to consume everything. All of this gloom makes Payer for Dying difficult to recommend, but it also points to the work of a talented filmmaker who’s bold enough to present an unforgiving vision without apology or attenuation.

Leftovers from the old year

I'm offering brief reviews of two movies (Anaconda and Goodbye, June) to go on record about movies that I hoped might offer diversion (in the case of Anaconda) and emotional heft (Goodbye June). Neither movie did either of those things, so here's my gloss on both them:

Anaconda

The end of the year usually finds critics weighing in on some of the year's more serious offerings, movies that probably will dominate the upcoming awards season. That wouldn't apply to Anaconda. Director Tom Gormican offers the sixth installment of the series, this one starring a usually reliable comedy crew that includes Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Thandiwe Newton, and Steve Zahn. The story revolves around a quartet of  old friends who reunite to rekindle the spark of enthusiasm they felt about the horror movies of their teens. Black, as a director of wedding videos, joins Rudd, as an actor with a dismal career, for a no-budget indie remake of their beloved Anaconda. Along with Newton, as a former high school pal, and Zahn, as another pal and cameraman, the principals head for the Amazon. Selton Mello appears as Santiago, the local hired as the movie's snake handler. Gormican mixes broad comedy and satire about movie cliches, but the movie's laughs may have gotten lost in the jungle, and its additions of horror seem like transfusions of gore into an already lost cause.

Goodbye June

And while we're on the subject of strong casts and weak results, consider Goodbye June, a Christmas movie that marks Kate Winslet's directorial debut. Winslet also appears on screen along with Toni Collette, Andrea Riseborough, and Johnny Flynn. They're siblings dealing with the imminent death from cancer of their mother (Helen Mirren). Dad (Timothy Spall) seems more interested in football and alcohol than in his family. Did I mention that the movie takes place at Christmas time and reaches a sentimental conclusion when grandchildren perform a Christmas play for their dying grandma? This one is meant to jerk tears,  but if I were going to shed any tears, they would be for a cast that deserved better material. No hard feelings, though. These accomplished actors surely will triumph anew.

A muted drama about excavating the past

 

   In The Dig, a British widow with an interest in archaeology wants to conduct an excavation on her land. To make her dream a reality, she hires an excavator known for his meticulous work.

   Director Simon Stone adapts a novel by John Preston to tell the story of the 1939 excavation of Sutton Hoo, the site of medieval burial mounds where an Anglo-Saxon ship was found. 

    The distant past becomes shockingly present when the ship is unearthed, a piece of history to be exhumed and then memorialized.

    The subject of excavation could have given the filmmakers an opportunity to connect us with the majestic erosions of time and forgotten people — if only for a moment or two.

    Instead, director Stone and screenwriter Moira Buffini serve up a  period piece that neither is tense nor sorrowful enough to transcend the status of a dry — or at least “dryish” — footnote, a strange outcome considering how often the story is drenched in Suffolk downpours.

    Carey Mulligan plays Edith Pretty, the pallid careworn woman who owns the property on which the dig will take place. 

     Ralph Fiennes portrays Basil Brown, the man who conducts the dig at Edith's request. Edith also has a young son (Archie Barnes) who's interested in the dig and begins to bond with Brown.

     Stone seldom brings the material to a dramatic boil. There's not much tension, for example, in wondering whether Edith will give her find to a local Suffolk museum or to the more prestigious British Museum.

    The major issue involves attempts by the British museum -- under an esteemed archaeologist played by Ken Stott -- to take control of the project. Without formal credentials, Brown might be pushed aside.

    A digressive subplot finds Lily James's Peggy working at the site with her husband Stuart (Ben Chaplin). James and Chapin portray a couple on shaky ground.  Edith's cousin Rory (Johnny Flynn) arrives to help Brown and to become a potential love interest for the sexually deprived Peggy. Her husband regards marriage as a bit of a formality to cover his real sexual interests.

   Mulligan gives a reserved performance compared to her work in A Promising Young Woman. Fiennes creates a man of the lower-classes who has developed and honed a specialty. Some of the people who've worked with Brown think he's "difficult," but for the most part he seems agreeable.

    Stone adds a sorrowful twist involving Edith's lingering illness --  that and her fear about the looming war. 

   Although this period piece may not be lacquered, it lacks the kind of animating energy that would have made it more interesting and too many of its various plot threads feel undernourished. As it stands, the dig might be more interesting than most of the characters. 

    Perhaps that why when I think of the movie in retrospect, I almost hear the sound of trowels digging quietly and determinedly in the Suffolk soil.

Another ‘Emma’ reaches the big screen

An aggressively well-appointed version of a Jane Austen novel gets the job done.

We hardly need an introduction to Emma, the title character of Jane Austen's 1816 novel. The young woman was the subject of a well-received 1996 Douglas McGrath movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Even greater numbers of viewers probably are familiar with Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, which starred Alicia Silverstone in a smartly conceived, high-school updating of Austen’s story.

Other Emmas have come and gone and some adventurous souls may even have read Austen’s novel. But Austen never seems to lose her appeal, which may explain why we now get director Autumn de Wilde’s 21st Century addition to the Austen big-screen canon.

De Wilde's Emma stars Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Glass) as the smugly self-assured Emma, a young woman who has lived in happy isolation from life’s harder knocks.

For reasons that I couldn’t entirely discern, de Wilde and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt decided to present the movie in a kind of strange way. Everything about the movie’s settings and costumes seems perfect, yet nothing seems entirely right. It may be pushing the point but it’s as if we’ve landed in a theme park devoted to the novelist’s work. Think Austenworld, where visitors are separated from the exhibits by velvet ropes.

If the approach was meant to heighten the cloistered rigidity of the world Austen observed, it becomes superfluous. Austen was no satirist, but she needed no help in pointing out the pretensions, social limitations, and hypocrisies of her characters.

Thankfully, Austen’s attempts to humble Emma -- making her aware that the world may not revolve around her -- remains. Better yet, the secondary roles are well-cast, from Bill Nighy as Emma’s constantly fretting father to Miranda Hart’s annoyingly loquacious but well-meaning Miss Bates to Mia Goth’s Harriet, a young woman who falls prey to Emma’s thoughtless manipulations.

Early on, Emma dissuades Harriet from marrying Robert Martin (Connor Swindells), a farmer who makes an obviously perfect match for her. Not good enough, says Emma as she sets Harriet up for disappointment.

Such is Emma’s issue; her faith in her own judgment blinds her to the feelings of others.

The key role of Mr. Knightley goes to Johnny Flynn, who brings hunky appeal to the character and who has the distinction of being the only Knightley in the story’s long history to be given a rear-view nude scene.

Austen’s story revolves around misdirected romance and signals that are misread, some involving Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson) and the supposedly irresistible Frank Churchill (Callum Turner).

The key scenes — Miss Bates’ humiliation by Emma, for example — work well and Austen’s idea that love must be earned with expressions of good moral character survives. Besides, it's reassuring to see that, even with limited screen time, the ever-resourceful Nighy refuses to be held prisoner by a costume so constricting it made me uncomfortable just looking at it. (See photo above.)