Sally Hawkins dominates 'Lost King'

      Director Stephen Frears has made groundbreaking movies (My Beautiful Launderette) and movies that haven’t matched his best work (Victoria & Abdul). Now comes The Lost King, a movie based on a screenplay be Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope. 

      Lost King may not be a landmark work for Frears, who's now 81, but a memorable performance by Sally Hawkins keeps the movie on track.

     The Lost King tells the story of Philippa Langley, the woman who instigated the real-life effort to discover the remains of King Richard III. If you recall the news stories from 2012, Richard’s bones were discovered in the parking lot of a social services office in Leicester. The less-than-majestic setting turned the discovery into irresistible headlines fodder.

      But the movie is more about Philippa than the king Shakespeare vilified. At the outset, a downtrodden Philippa is passed over for a promotion at work. A bit harried by her two young sons, she's   separated from her husband (Coogan). A new love interest hasn't kept him from remaining part of Philippa's life.

     Hawkins mixes insecurity and assertion as Philippa embraces a quest that few others take seriously, including representatives of the academic establishment she eventually encounters.

     The screenplay tells us Philippa’s interest was sparked by a production of Richard III. She was taken with the performance of the actor (Harry Lloyd) who played Shakespeare’s fabled hunchback.

    As the movie develops, Philippa begins seeing Lloyd as Richard everywhere she goes. I’m not sure we needed visual assistance to understand Philippa’s obsession. Hawkins makes Philippa’s undaunted commitment clear enough -- sans hallucinations.

    Before launching her project, Philippa joins a branch of the Richard III Society,  a group that harbors a contingent of Richard nerds, some of whom claim that Richard was neither a hunchback nor the ambitious murderer of Shakespeare’s play. He was, they insist, a rightful king, England's last Plantagenet monarch.

   Philippa's work picks up speed after she convinces an archaeologist (Mark Addy) to join her search, but her instincts prevail over his more measured approach. 

   Eventually, hypocritical institutions try to cash on Philippa's work but Frears sticks to the point: Sometimes, it takes an obsessive outlier to push a cause to its satisfying conclusion. Philippa did that for Richard; Hawkins does it for the movie.

Bob's Cinema Diary: 5/22/20 -- 'The Trip to Greece' and 'Military Wives'

The Trip to Greece

There are at least two ways to look at The Trip to Greece, the fourth and purportedly final episode in a series of movies from Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Those familiar with the series, know the drill. Coogan and Brydon trade barbs, do a variety of spot-on imitations and roll through routines that feel entirely improvised. They also eat sumptuous meals, mostly in premier restaurants boasting spectacular views. During a time when most of us can’t travel, watching Trip to Greece either will provide welcome relief for the homebound or become a form of torment, a reminder of all that has moved beyond reach during these Covid-19 days. Director Michael Winterbottom adds a bit of story to the mix, the major one involving a saddened Coogan and his hospitalized father. Coogan, by the way, does a great Ray Winstone, casting the actor as an improbable Henry VIII. Did I enjoy seeing some of the locations? Yes. Was the idea of building the trip around Ulysses's travels in The Odyssey particularly compelling? Not really. Does it sometimes seem as if the few additional characters are around to function as a laugh track for Coogan and Brydon? Yes. Did I feel any hostility toward the series? Not a bit. Look, Coogan and Brydon have mastered their comic-duo act and Trip to Greece offers intermittent pleasures -- even if it has lost some of its freshness and even if you sometimes wish that the two would calm down and stop being two brilliant guys whose commitment to entertaining can become annoyingly incessant.

Military Wives

Director Peter Cattaneo directed The Full Monty (1997). That should tell you that Military Wives isn't about to offer a hard-hitting critique of the military or a deeply felt lament about the women who support husbands (and in one case, a wife) who go off to war. The story centers around two characters, Kristen Scott Thomas's Kate and Sharon Horgan's Lisa. Not surprisingly, Scott Thomas plays the bossier of the two with Horgan giving life to a character who's far less rule-bound. After the troops leave the movie's military base, the two begin a choir that's supposed to boost the morale of those who wait at home. Cattaneo sounds a few somber notes, but Military Wives makes no bones about its intention to write a feel-good prescription that reaches its crescendo when the choir is invited to perform at a memorial ceremony at Royal Albert Hall Scott Thomas knows how to deliver the goods when it comes to a character such as Kate. She can put her nose in the air while reassuring us that she'll eventually play the trump card of her character's humanity. Horgan makes a relaxed foil as the two clash over the kind of music on which the choir should focus. Cattaneo gins up some last-minute conflict that hardly matters, a predictable bump on a predictable road. My conclusion: I'm not a great fan of this particular kind of movie but kudos to the cast for approaching the task without apology. Sometimes, it pays not to veer too far off the main road.

The last days of a great comic duo

Stan & Ollie reveals Laurel and Hardy in a moment of decline.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were great comic movie stars who established themselves as a team during the late 1920s and remained active for almost two decades. Laurel, an Englishman, and Hardy, an American, became famous for beautifully sustained slapstick routines that revolved around the key attributes of each of their comic characters. The addled Stan played against the always exasperated Ollie.

Fortunately for my generation, Laurel and Hardy films outlasted the duo’s prime, becoming staples of 1950s television, at least where I grew up, New Jersey within reach of New York TV.

I'm not sure how the accepted wisdom evolved, but Laurel came to be recognized as the reigning genius of the comic duo, an obsessive thinker when it came to inventing routines and working out their intricacies. Laurel may have been the brains of the outfit, but for most of us, it's impossible to imagine Laurel without Hardy.

The movie Stan & Ollie pays fitting tribute to the comic duo, focusing on them mostly at the end of their careers. With their film opportunities radically diminished, Stan (Steve Coogan) and Ollie (John C. Reilly) travel to England. They hope to use stage appearances to polish their act while Stan seeks funding for a new movie.

The atmosphere surrounding the trip isn't exactly buoyant. Ollie's health is fragile and the two haven't worked together for a while.

It should come as no surprise to those familiar with any of the Trip movies starring Coogan and Rob Brydon that Coogan is an accomplished impressionist. He makes a fine Laurel, the muddled, incompetent on-screen comic whose calculations dominate his off-screen life. He always seems to be working on something.

Reilly delivers the movie's biggest surprise. Thanks to some prodigious make-up, Reilly has taken on Hardy's look and his overweight huffing. He also masters Hardy's signature moves: from fiddling with the ends of his tie to delivering some of Ollie's trademark lines about how the clueless Stan has landed him in "another fine mess."

Working from a screenplay by Jeff Pope, director John S. Baird sets most of the movie in various down-scale British theaters in 1953. It may not be the limelight, but the two carry on, and the actors make it clear that once the curtain rises, Stan and Ollie give even the smallest audiences their best.

Baird doesn't shrink from the sadness of the situation. Hardy feels the pain that he believes stems from not being loved by Stan. In this reading of the story, Stan loved the act more than he loved the man.

While waiting for news of their pending movie, Laurel and Hardy also await the arrival of their wives, played with deft comic touches by Nina Arianda and Shirley Henderson.

Despite some tension between Laurel and Hardy, the movie never develops a hard edge, perhaps because Baird tempers the film's melancholy with appropriate affection for two screen legends.

I'm fearful that younger audiences will not seek out the modestly made Stan & Ollie. That would be a shame because if they did, they'd probably hasten to YouTube, where they could discover the joys of Stan & Ollie's comedy and learn something about the fleeting nature of fame, even for those who scale the highest of movie heights.

Inspired impressions in (not of) Spain

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon traveled this route before, but in The Trip to Spain the combination of Coogan and Brydon still clicks. After The Trip (2011) and The Trip to Italy (2014), The Trip to Spain makes us wonder if these two don't plan to visit every country in Europe. To tell the truth, I don't mind if they do. Both Coogan and Brydon play themselves -- or at least versions of themselves. They travel to Spain, enjoy stunning vistas, eat disgustingly well and entertain us with a variety of impressions -- from Michael Caine to Sean Connery to Mick Jagger to Woody Allen. We've seen some of these impressions before, but it doesn't really matter because there's an unsettled quality to the relationship between the two men that makes their byplay feel fresh. Coogan and Brydon can be competitive and wry and Coogan can't always suppress his annoyance with his traveling companion. The reason for the trip: Steve plans to write a book about his Spanish travels; Rob supposedly is reviewing restaurants. Coogan and Brydon's dueling Roger Moore impressions have a pun-based twist, playing on the mistaken notion that Moore was a Moor. Coogan also worries about his career, an uninitiated change of agents, as well as alarming calls from his son and from a woman he's seeing in New York. The complication: She's married. Director Michael Winterbottom infuses the movie with a sad undertone involving the fact that the divorced Coogan -- as opposed to the married Brydon -- seems destined for perpetual unhappiness. It's arguable that this journey goes on too long. Still, I haven't tried of watching Coogan and Brydon do their dueling impressions act, which doesn't entirely hide traces of bitterness and, of course, the kind of self-absorption that keeps two men focused on each another, often at the expense of the mind-broadening pleasures of travel.

Two Brits, lots of great scenery

The spot-on impressions done by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in The Trip to Italy tilt toward mockery.

Consider: When a smart mimic captures a well-known personality, the impression tends to underline the ways in which a distinctive talent may have veered toward shtick.

Coogan and Brydon -- who qualify as very smart mimics -- previously teamed in 2010's The Trip, which was directed by Michael Winterbottom who again takes the helm.

This time, Winterbottom creates space for Coogan and Brydon to do their bits as they travel through Italy's splendid Amalfi Coast -- hardly a job that seems like hardship duty for anyone involved.

There isn't much to the story, but low-key professional jealousy between the two comics spices the proceedings.

If you saw Coogan and Brydon's respective Michael Caine impressions and Brydon's Al Pacino in the previous movie, you may fault this one for not breaking sufficient new ground, but I didn't mind.

A bit of personal drama intrudes: Brydon has an affair with one of the crew members (Rosie Fellner) of a sail boat the two board. He's evidently having marital problems.

At one point, Coogan's teen-age son joins the food tour, which purportedly is being sponsored by a British newspaper.

Despite hints at real-life problems, neither Coogan nor Brydon seems particularly angst ridden. That makes The Trip to Italy a pleasantly witty journey through Italian cuisine as hosted by two men who admit that they don't qualify as food experts.

If there's a competition between the two men, I'd give the advantage to Brydon, who never misses a beat when it comes to turning any situation into an amusing riff.

Viewing requires tolerance for two guys who always seem to keep their comedy meters running. And, yes, that can be a trifle overbearing, like a bright light that never shuts off.

Judi Dench triumphs in 'Philomena'

An aging woman tries to locate the son that was taken from her.

Philomena, a new film from director Stephen Frears, deals with the legacy of the Magdalene laundries that blighted the Irish landscape until deep into the last century. In this case, an asylum located in an abbey staffed by nuns, took in girls who had the misfortune to become pregnant. These young women were forced into difficult physical labor and were treated with the kind of scorn the outwardly pious often aim at those whom they regard as sinners.

The girls toiled in laundries under sweat shop conditions, were shown little compassion and only were allowed to see their kids for an hour a day.

We've had other movies about women who found themselves in Magdalene asylums, notably 2002's The Magdalene Sisters, a tough drama written and directed by actor Peter Mullan. But this one is different, a movie that derives its tone from its main character, Philomena Lee, a woman who was not defeated by terrible early experiences.

Working from a script by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope (based on The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith), Frears tempers outrage with comic elements and with the resolved but gentle spirit of his main character, played with tenacity and humor by Judi Dench, an actress whose gifts are well known.

In 1952, the pregnant Philomena was placed in a Magdalene laundry by a father who rejected her and who regarded her as a fallen woman deserving of eternal shame. To make matters worse, Philomena -- played in early scenes by Sophie Kennedy Clark -- had to endure the agonies of unwanted separation from her three-year-old son after the boy was adopted by a well-heeled American couple.

Most of the story takes place some 50 years after this emotionally devastating event. Philomena -- now in her 70s -- wants to locate the son who was taken from her. All she knows is that the boy was brought to the U.S.

To help her, Philomena enlists the services of Martin Sixsmith (Coogan), a journalist who lost his job as a PR man in the Blair administration. At professional loose ends, Coogan's Sixsmith initially resists any involvement with what he considers a potentially mawkish human interest story.

Obviously, Sixsmith ultimately signs on, his interest fueled by a sense of anger at the injustice suffered by Philomena. Sixsmith is a fallen away Catholic, an atheist and a staunch critic of the church.

Ironically, Philomena, who has far more reason to be bitter about religion, hasn't forsaken her faith. She seems to have accepted the fact that the world of her girlhood mostly has vanished. She even makes a point of telling Sixsmith that some of the nuns she encountered were kind.

Moreover, Philomena's attitudes about sex are surprisingly relaxed. She remembers her early encounter with the young man who got her pregnant as entirely pleasurable.

In a telling image, Philomena looks at a suggestive billboard in an airport: Dench's face registers recognition of the impossibly wide gap that has opened between what Philomena experienced as a girl and contemporary norms regarding sexual behavior. Had she been born 50 years later, her story would have been impossible.

Coogan, who normally plays comic roles, brings welcome restraint to his portrayal of a journalist who eventually finds the spark that ignites his indignation. Unlike Philomena, Sixsmith has no interest in forgiving the nuns who once made her life a living hell and who continued to deceive her as an adult.

Frears lightens the mood with odd-couple contrasts that emerge when Philomena and Sixsmith travel to the U.S. in search of her son. Sixsmith greets Philomena's devotion to romance novels with eye-rolling elitism. He's also put off by her lack of taste, expressed by her delight in watching movies such as Big Momma's House.

There's much more to the story than I've suggested here. But for those unfamiliar with the tale, it's best to allow its various contours to emerge in a theater.

Know, though, that Frears -- in workman-like fashion that serves the material -- offers a cinematic essay on tolerance, compassion, forgiveness and the way unjustifiably stern judgments can echo throughout a life long after the cruelty has stopped.