Hello, and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup! Each week we take you through the biggest new cinema releases and why you should be excited for them. This week: Scrooge, swindlers and sexual misconduct…
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.
Ebenezer
In a new adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, Johnny Depp plays Ebenezer Scrooge – a miserly old skinflint who hates Christmas, until a series of hauntings forces him to confront the consequences of the choices he’s made in life and sets him on a new path.
A Christmas Carol has already been adapted approximately 405,345,645,045 times, including the greatest Christmas film there ever was or will be (the Muppets’ version, of course), so it’s difficult to create a new version that can offer more than the same familiar story beats and dialogue. It looks like director Ti West (best known for the excellent trilogy of X, Pearl and MaXXXine) has recognised that, and decided to get around the problem by not trying to do anything different – this appears to be a pretty straight adaptation, with perhaps some updated ghost effects. The choice of title, the choice of casting for the title character, and the marketing insistently emphasising that casting, all point to what is probably the real reason this film got made – this is very much a Johnny Depp vehicle. There’s even a scene where Scrooge gets sucked into the centre of his bed, in a clear call-back to the end of Depp’s breakout role in A Nightmare On Elm Street. Despite winning (or at least, not losing) his defamation suit with Amber Heard, her allegations have dragged his name through the mud and there’s a risk his name might put be more of a turn-off than a draw for audiences. Depp is no doubt hoping that, much like Scrooge himself, this classic ghost story will make the world like him again.
Potential controversy aside, Depp does seem to be genuinely well-cast here. At 63 years old, he’s actually about the right age to play Ebenezer. It’s important that Scrooge has just enough of a twinkle in his eye, even at his most curmudgeonly, for the audience to believe that his soul can be saved literally overnight, and Depp excels at playing that kind of eccentric loner. The rest of the cast is fantastic too – among the living are Rupert Grint as Scrooge’s employee Bob Cratchit, Sam Claflin as his nephew Fred, and Daisy Ridley as Fred’s wife. Meanwhile, the spirits include Ian McKellen as Scrooge’s late business partner Jacob Marley, and Andrea Riseborough, Tramell Tillman and Robert Strange as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, respectively. Riseborough and Tillman in particular look like some of the creepiest versions of their ghosts ever committed to film.
I still think it’s a bit early to be releasing Christmas films, but if you want a new(ish) take on a classic tale to start getting you in the festive mood, I think you could do a lot worse than this.
- Ebenezer on IMDB
- Ebenezer on Rotten Tomatoes
How To Rob a Bank
A crew of bank robbers led by Ryan (Nicholas Hoult) starts posting footage of their heists on social media, where their Robin Hood philosophy quickly attracts a huge following. FBI agent John West (John C Reilly) enlists the help of talented hacker Reagan Gardner (Zoë Kravitz) to track them down and prevent their biggest heist of all.
Director David Leitch has had a good run of thoroughly entertaining action films with Bullet Train and Fall Guy. This one is generally a little more formulaic – there are plenty of movies where a detective or FBI agent is trying to track down a successful criminal or gang ahead of their big final job, and where we’re asked to sympathise with the criminals (as well as the detective) for their honourable motivation or relatable backstory. The banks are the real villains, they can afford to lose the money, and the criminals are just taking them down a peg and redistributing the wealth among the common people. The USP here is the social media element, which provides a framework for some pieces to camera that don’t quite break the fourth wall but certainly lean heavily against it, channelling Fight Club in its attempts to get us to see things from the criminals’ viewpoint. All of that only works if the bank robbers are likeable and sympathetic enough to get the audience onside, and Hoult (as well as fellow gang members Pete Davidson and Anna Sawai) should have the charisma to pull that off. And of course everyone loves John C Reilly.
Despite the star power and Leitch’s track record, this hasn’t been getting great reviews. It currently has 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics saying it’s a bit overstuffed and the messaging about the need for social reform doesn’t land as well as it should. Still, if you’re a fan of cops & robbers films and fancy some solid action scenes, this looks like it could be fun.
- How To Rob a Bank on IMDB
- How To Rob a Bank on Rotten Tomatoes
Prima Facie
Based on a play by Suzie Miller, Prima Facie follows barrister Tessa (Cynthia Erivo) – a defence lawyer who has wound up specialising in defending men accused of sexual assault. But when she herself becomes a victim of the same crime, she is forced to see things from the other side of the courtroom and gets a new perspective on the failings of the justice system.
Miller’s play premiered in 2019 and had a hugely successful run in London with Jodie Comer playing Tessa. Depressingly, it still feels just as necessary and important today as it did back then, especially given the high profile court case and celebrity allegations that have been in the news just in the last week (and the blue wave sweeping across American politics meaning a full release of the Epstein files might finally be on the horizon). The play is written as a one-woman show, and Cynthia Erivo certainly has the acting talent to pull this off, although the film has expanded the cast to now include Daniel Ings, Harry Treadaway and Simon Russell Beale, among others. Hopefully that won’t pull too much of the focus away from the central character – there would be some irony in a film about how women who have been abused are ignored and sidelined, taking screentime away from its female lead so that it can introduce more male characters. The reviews would suggest that it has made exactly that mistake – it currently has a surprisingly low 30% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics arguing that it has not made its point with enough urgency. Even so, this looks like a very compelling concept and should be well worth a watch.
- Prima Facie on IMDB
- Prima Facie on Rotten Tomatoes
Fjord
Mihai and Lisbet Gheorghiu (Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve), a devoutly religious Romanian-Norwegian couple, move with their five children to a remove fjord in Norway and make friends with their neighbours. When one of their children turns up to school one day with bruises on her arm, the neighbours question the Gheorghius’ parenting methods, the children are taken by social services, and they are forced into a legal battle to regain custody.
Renate Reinsve is having a great year, with her Oscar nomination for Sentimental Value and her appearance in the box office hit Backrooms raising her profile among English speaking audiences. Sebastian Stan, a much better-known actor thanks to the Winter Soldier, is almost unrecognisable here with his bald head and beard. The film has had a lot of success already, with director Cristian Mungiu winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes (making him one of only ten people to have won the award twice) and Fjord being named Romania’s official submission for Best International Feature at the Oscars. The film is loosely based on a true story that inspired worldwide protests, with supporters of the family arguing that the Norwegian child protection services were too quick to take the children from their parents.
This is getting some very strong reviews, currently with 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it looks like a fascinating and deeply moving watch.
- Fjord on IMDB
- Fjord on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
On the face of it, I would have gone with Prima Facie. But having seen the reviews I’m pining for Fjord.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Wildwood
- Godzilla Minus Zero – Just what a Godzilla film should be: big, loud and stompy with plenty of thrilling monster action and a compelling human story to put it all in perspective. Toho have proven again (if proof were needed) that they understand the beauty of their big scaly characters far better than Hollywood does – this Godzilla is a force of nature and the best the rest of us can do is get out of the way and hope he lumbers off elsewhere. Well worth seeing in IMAX if you can.
- Wicker
Event of the Week
What’s this, a new section in the Film Roundup? Why yes it is! As well as all the mega blockbusters and charming indies available at the big screen of your choice, Birmingham and the surrounding region plays host to all manner of film festivals, special screenings and movie-related events to satisfy the cinephile in all of us. Each week I will try to pick one out and give it a bit of a plug.
Everyone loves a good movie, but the true film connoisseurs know that there is a certain pleasure to be had from a really, really bad one. As anyone who’s ever been to a proper screening of The Room will tell you, they are often the most fun you can have in a cinema. This Sunday, Digbeth bar Spoilers is hosting a Sh*tty Movie Club. Their resident artist and film fan Richie has hand-picked a double-bill of films guaranteed to be awful enough to be unintentionally entertaining. Starting at 6pm and 8pm, the films themselves are a mystery, but there’s no shortage of hammy acting, dumb scripts, cheap special effects and weird directorial choices to draw from. The free film screenings will be followed up by karaoke from 10pm, in case you feel inspired to regale your fellow patrons with a rendition of You’re My Rose by Kitra Williams…
Trailer of the Week
Karōshi (literally meaning ‘death from overwork’) is set in the near future in New York, where a worker’s suicide inspires Teo Yoo’s character to infiltrate the company and take revenge. It’s a corporate espionage/ samurai film with slickly choreographed action scenes courtesy of producer Chad Stahelski (former stuntman and director of the John Wick films), also starring Samurai’s Takehiro Hira, Isabel May, Giancarlo Esposito and Cynthia Erivo. We’ll see how much work has gone into it when Karōshi reaches our screens early in the new year.
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