Hello and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup! Each week we run through the biggest new cinema releases and why you should be excited for them. This week: Christopher’s normal orphan obsession. Sorry – The Christophers, Normal, Orphan and Obsession.
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these movies yet so all of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
Obsession
Bear (Michael Johnston) has a serious crush on his friend Nikki (Inde Navarette) but can’t seem to muster up the courage to ask her out. Hoping for an easy shortcut, he uses a mysterious ‘One Wish Willow’ to wish that Nikki would fall madly in love with him. But the wish goes a little too far, and Nikki becomes dangerously obsessed with him.
This is a fun concept for an original horror, taking a relatable motivation (who hasn’t wished for their crush to fall in love with them?) and playing it through to an extreme conclusion. There are some morally difficult dynamics to contend with though. From the moment the wish is granted, Nikki loses all agency – she is both the victim and the threat, her increasingly deranged obsession with Bear only existing because of his selfish obsession with her. Bear is like the Dr Frankenstein here to Nikki’s monster – she might be the scary one, but the danger is all of his making. The script will need to be absolutely clear throughout that the tragedy is in what Bear has done to Nikki, not what Nikki is doing to Bear.
As long as it can navigate that, there is a lot of potential for unnerving scares here, and for some not-so-subtle commentary about the dangers of co-dependant relationships. The reviews have been very positive (it currently has 96% on Rotten Tomatoes) with a lot of praise for the relatively unknown lead cast (Johnston has mostly done voice acting before, and Navarette is probably best known for playing Sarah Cushing in the Superman & Lois TV series) and for its measured escalation of the horror elements. This should be well worth a watch for horror fans.
- Obsession on IMDB
- Obsession on Rotten Tomatoes
Normal
Having made a name for himself as a director of strange indies with a dark side, such as Sightseers and High Rise, Ben Wheatley made a very sudden swerve a few years ago by making Meg 2: The Trench – a film about as subtle as, well, Jason Statham punching a giant shark. With Normal he seems to be landing somewhere in the middle, with all the action of Meg playing out in small town American with a cast of likeable character actors and a plot full of secrets.
Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk) accepts a job as sheriff of the Midwestern town of Normal, hoping for a few years of relative peace and quiet after some troubles in his past life. But he starts to notice hints that all is not normal after all, with the citizens of the town having access to a lot more money and guns than they should. As the secrets start to come to light, Ulysses will have to accept that this is not going to be the tranquil retreat he was hoping for.
The plot admittedly sounds a bit like ‘What if Hot Fuzz but America?’, but this looks like a lot of fun. Odenkirk’s last leading roles in the distractingly similarly-named Nobody films showed that he can comfortably pull off an action hero, complemented by his general air of resigned frustration and knack for a comedic one-liner. The supporting cast includes Henry Winkler and Lena Headey. This is getting some solid reviews, currently sitting at 76% on Rotten Tomatoes.
- Normal on IMDB
- Normal on Rotten Tomatoes
The Christophers
Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) is a retired artist whose paintings used to sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Wanting to guarantee that they’ll have an inheritance when he dies, his children hire a restoration artist, Lori (Michaela Coel), to forge and complete Julian’s unfinished series of masterpieces, known as the Christophers. Posing as an assistant, Lori heads to Julian’s apartment where she finds herself engaged in a battle of wits with the aging artist.
Despite the presence of James Corden (never a good sign) as one of Julian’s children, this has a lot of promise. It’s directed by Steven Soderbergh, who has good form with this kind of tense, witty drama, and it’s exactly the kind of localised, dialogue-heavy script that theatre veteran McKellen excels at. The trailer hints that despite his lack of trust towards her and his generally acerbic manner, Julian will warm to Lori’s company and the film will explore his vulnerability and isolation – again, something that McKellen will be able to bring some real pathos to. After last month’s Mother Mary this is the second film in quick succession starring Michaela Coel, who’s otherwise had a relatively quiet career since her BAFTA winning turn in I Will Destroy You. Both films are dramatic two-handers that give her an opportunity to show what she can do opposite much more established actors, and she seems to be holding her own comfortably.
The Christophers is getting some great reviews, currently scoring 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. If you’re looking for something a bit calmer but no less intense this week, this is the film for you.
- The Christophers on IMDB
- The Christophers on Rotten Tomatoes
Orphan
Orphan follows Andor (Bojtorján Barabas), a young boy in 1950s Hungary, who has been raised by his mother and never knew his father. Although his mother had told him that he had died in the Nazi camps, one day a man with no resemblance to the pictures he’s clung to appears and announces he is Andor’s real father.
This is a period drama from Oscar-winning Hungarian filmmaker László Nemes, whose Son of Saul took the award for Best International Film in 2016. It charts a period of European history that, at least to British audiences, is not particularly well-known, exploring the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution and its repression by Soviet forces. Given Russia’s current relations with its neighbours and Hungary’s recent rejection of Viktor Orbán’s far-right politics, it’s a timely essay on Hungarian identity. The film recreates the look of the period well, although the trailer doesn’t give too much away about the plot beyond the initial premise so it will be interesting to see how Andor’s story plays out against that backdrop.
The reviews for this have been slightly more mixed, but Nemes has some solid credentials and fans of European cinema will certainly want to catch this on the big screen.
- Orphan on IMDB
- Orphan on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
It’s a toss-up between Obsession and Normal for me, but as it’s the more original concept I’m going with Obsession.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Mortal Kombat II – This is exactly what you want from a Mortal Kombat film. There are some great fight scenes and some remarkably grisly deaths – they might not be quite as gnarly as the finishing moves in the game but some of them come pretty close. The plot is pretty straightforward, the acting is fine and the dialogue is a bit daft, but if you’re coming to Mortal Kombat for any of that then you’ve only got yourself to blame. Kano steals every scene he’s in and also most of the things in it, Sub-Zero and Scorpion bring a load of references to the game, and Kung Lao has the most fun fight scene with his ridiculous hat. Given all of those characters died in the first movie the franchise is perhaps stretching the ‘Mortal’ part of its name, but it definitely delivers on the Kombat.
- Hokum – A good ripping yarn of a ghost story, complete with foreshadowing children’s stories, hidden basements, mysterious locked rooms and suspicious disappearances with a host of suspects. Adam Scott’s writer is surprisingly unlikeable to begin with, but the story delves into his history just enough to sympathise with him by the final act. The supporting cast all have a lot of fun with their respective roles, each finding space for their character to have a memorable impact on the story without detracting from Scott’s arc. It’s not desperately scary, but it certainly builds an atmosphere – you’ll be looking for hidden shapes lurking in every dark shadow even if there’s nothing to be found there. Also, just by way of a warning, don’t panic if you spend the first few minutes wondering if you’ve come into the right cinema screen…
- The Devil Wears Prada 2
Trailer of the Week
There are few films that I’m looking forward to at the moment more than Wildwood, which is the latest masterpiece by Laika (the stop-motion studio behind Coraline and Kubo & the Two Strings). Based on a children’s novel by Colin Meloy, Wildwood follows Prue (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) who goes on a quest in the forests of Portland, Oregon to recover her brother after he’s carried off by a murder of crows. There have already been several teasers, mood pieces and three featurettes (here, here and here) showcasing the frankly insane amount of effort, detail, patience, artistry and magic that’s been going into the making of this film for over a decade now. But this week we’ve finally had the first proper trailer, and it does not disappoint. Although it sets the mood more than it gives any of the plot away, there’s a shedload of hints at what we can look forward to – from fully built cityscapes to Nutcracker-esque anthropomorphic soldiers, to what looks like a deeply depressing story of a young man walking out onto a roof. I can imagine the animators having a nervous breakdown when they first saw the storyboards and came to that shot of the army charging down a hill. We’ll see the product of all that work when Wildwood hits our screens in October.
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