TMW #23: Companion, Hard Truths, Saturday Night and more reviewed
In a bumper reviews edition we cast an eye over every major new release
Happy Friday, cine-supporters,
…and welcome to a bumper reviews edition of The Movie Wingman. It’s a busy week for releases and a varied one at that. We’ve got historical drama (September 5), historical comedy-drama (Saturday Night), wedding silliness (You’re Cordially Invited), anime loveliness (The Colors Within) and the new one from a filmmaker who’s a genre unto himself, Mike Leigh (Hard Truths). And we’re leading off with the clear winner of this week’s mash-up contest, romantic sci-fi horror-com Companion.
If you catch any of the above, let us know your verdict in the comments section. And if you don’t currently have access to said forum, now’s the time to consider upgrading to a paid subscription to The Movie Wingman. You’ll also receive bonus film writings - like our regular Trailer Club, bringing you the latest coming attractions.
Speaking of which, we’ll be back on Tuesday with another edition packed with insight, and more dad jokes than you can shake a schtick at. In the meantime, we’d be grateful for any likes, restacks or recommends you can spare.
Thanks for reading,
Matthew (Matt and Jordan)
Companion
15, in cinemas now
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Heavily marketed as “from the creators of Barbarian”, Companion similarly benefits audiences who go in cold. Most of its fun comes in the layers of surprises, so this review will give away fewer plot points than you get in the trailer. Even the poster reveals the early twist that the premise of this fun-in-the-moment thrill-ride hinges on. Companion features some big laughs and wince-inducing grue, but some insurmountable plot holes mean it’s probably one you won’t rush to revisit in years to come.
Writer/director Drew Hancock makes his feature debut here, with the Barbarian team of Zach Cregger, Roy Lee, Raphael Margules and J. D. Lifshitz producing. It begins as slickly as it continues, with a supermarket meet-cute between Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid) over a crate of tumbling oranges. When next we see them, further into their relationship, they’re heading on a retreat with some of his pals, who she’s evidently nervous around. Cue the early revelation that Iris is, to use the gang’s impolite shorthand, a “fuckbot”; she’s an artificial being Jack has ordered from the Empathix company, programmed to love and serve him. A bloody mishap is just the start of an escalating cat-and-mouse game that plays out in this luxury remote location.
It’s very Black Mirror, with a dash of Ex Machina. Hancock has plenty of inventive ideas when it comes to tech and violence, and no small supply of wit. The script favours zingers over philosophising, and The Boys star Quaid rises to the quippy challenge. Thatcher also continues to cement her rep as a premier scream queen of this generation (following The Boogeyman, Heretic and a MaXXXine cameo), as a bot as loving as A.I.’s David and as relentless as the Terminator. There’s also fun support from Lukas Gage, Harvey Guillén, and Megan Suri, with Rupert Friend an early lol-hogger as the the sleazy Russian whose isolated pad the action takes place in.
Companion plays like both a chase movie and a scathing look at modern dating, particularly when it looks at ‘nice guys’ and coercive control. Like Charlie Brooker’s aforementioned anthology series, it takes a sci-fi high-concept that works as a springboard for post-movie debate. Individual episodes of Black Mirror can get away with being a bit throwaway, as you’re only seconds away from Netflix autoplaying the next one. Companion’s myriad plot holes leave it feeling a little more flimsy, however. Right from the off, it elicits facepalms for characters’ illogical behaviour. The occasional iffy decision is to be expected in a horror movie, but such instances pile up distractingly here.
Thankfully, compelling performances, an arch tone and a brisk pace keep it propelling along for a tight 90-odd mins, and its near-future/alt-present tech makes a fun but blunt metaphor. In dating terms, it’s not exactly a keeper, but it’s a very enjoyable evening out. (Matt Maytum)
In short: A fun, disposable horror-com that’ll disappear from your memory in the time it takes for a software update.
Stay for the end credits? There’s a fun coda that plays out in snippets over the earliest part of the credits (frustrating if, like at Wingman’s screening, the person in front decides to stand for the duration of this addendum).
Next up for Cregger: The horror maestro du jour’s next film as director will be the mystery-shrouded Weapons, starring Josh Brolin and Julia Garner. He’s also recently been attached to a new (finally good?) adaptation of the Resident Evil videogame series.
Hard Truths
12A, in cinemas now
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Life isn’t sweet for anxious, combative Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste); more a succession of bleak moments, as she clashes with everyone who enters her orbit: doctors, dentists, till workers, furniture-store assistants, everyone. Communication appears to have fully broken down with her family - plumber husband Curtley (David Webber), withdrawn adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) - but things are still hanging on by a thread, at least, with sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), a big-hearted hairdresser who is the sunshine to Patsy’s rain.
Following the period heft of Peterloo and Mr. Turner, Hard Truths marks Mike Leigh’s return to the kind of small-scale, London-set social realism for which the writer/director’s best known. Familiar turf, maybe, yet uncomfortable and challenging, thanks to Leigh’s unflinching - yet deeply empathetic - take on depression, OCD and unresolved grief. Even when it comes to a classically Leigh-ian family get-together (as awkward and funny-sad as you’d expect), it doesn’t feel like he’s replaying the hits, given the raw truthfulness and observational nuance on display. Hilarious, terrifying, intensely committed and ultimately moving, Jean-Baptiste has justly been recognised by myriad awards bodies (albeit not, controversially, the Oscars), but there are also terrific turns from the happy-go-lucky Austin and the quietly, profoundly resigned Webber. (Matthew Leyland)
RIP: Like every Leigh film since 1990’s Life is Sweet, the film’s cinematographer is Dick Pope, who sadly died last October, aged 77.
Saturday Night
15, in cinemas now
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Just as America rejected Better Man (more fool them) due to Robbie Williams’ lack of cultural caché across the pond, it’s a safe bet that Saturday Night – Jason Reitman’s frantic dramatisation of Saturday Night Live’s inaugural broadcast – won’t find much of an audience in the UK. It’s an understandable fate as even though you don’t have to be an SNL scholar to appreciate Saturday Night, it’s a film that unquestionably benefits from a fair bit of background knowledge. Unfolding in real time over the 90 minutes preceding the live sketch show’s premiere episode on 11 October 1975, Reitman’s film follows SNL mastermind Lorne Michaels (The Fabelmans’ Gabriel LaBelle) as he wrestles with star egos, a bloated schedule, collapsing sets and combative studio execs to make TV history. Shot with enjoyably chaotic immediacy, and featuring a white-hot cast of up-and-comers (Rachel Sennott, Cooper Hoffman, Cory Michael Smith) as a range of familiar and not-so-familiar faces, Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan lend credence to the idea that SNL’s arrival was television’s counter-cultural moment, even if the mythologising of a purely American concern feels a little self-serving. Add a star if you’re an SNL super-fan. (JF)
KEEPING IT REAL: In the mood for a real-time movie, but not up on SNL? Here are five alternative recommendations: High Noon, Cléo from 5 to 7, Before Sunset, Victoria, Shiva Baby.
*Reviews of September 5, You’re Cordially Invited and The Colors Within are up next, as well as our regular Trailer Club*
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