Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) or, Wartime Swinging London

♥♥♥♥

 

Kelly Reilly steals the gaze on this festive poster for Stephen Frears' Mrs Henderson Presents with a cheaky tag-line top-right

 

The distinguished Mrs Henderson becomes a widow in 1937, and she decides to purchase a London theatre, which she succeeds in making a popular venue with variety shows featuring nudity.

 

Mrs Henderson Presents is written by Martin Sherman (Alive and Kicking (1996)), based on an idea by Kathy and David Rose (The Kid, TV-series (1986, producer), both), and directed by English master filmmaker Stephen Frears (Gumshoe (1971)). It is based on the true story of Laura Henderson's Windmill Theatre in London.

It is a cheerful and life-affirming story about hanging onto life during WWII, which especially lives on Judi Dench (Nine (2009)) and Bob Hoskins' (Don Quioxote (2000, TV movie)) infectious performances. Will Young (Highland Park (2013)), Kelly Reilly (Joe's Palace (2007, TV movie)) and Christopher Guest (Heartbeeps (1981)) are also good and well cast.

Mrs Henderson Presents is a sporadically funny, sporadically moving film with a natural relationship to bodies and nudity.

Related posts:

Stephen Frears:   Top 10: Best dramedies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Top 10: The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess

Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) - Streep, Frears and Co. drop us a delightful present 

Top 10: Best UK movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V] 

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV] 

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Philomena (2013) - Dench astounds in Frears' powerful true-story drama

Dirty Pretty Things (2002) - Good performances anchor Frears' flawed, overrated illegal immigrant drama 

 

Watch a trailer for the movie here

 

Cost: 20 mil. $

Box office: 27.8 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.39 times its cost)

[Mrs Henderson Presents premiered 9 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 103 minutes. Shooting took place from October 2004 - ? in France and England, including in London. It opened #41 to a 55k $ first weekend in 6 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #17 and in 522 theaters (different weeks), grossing 11 mil. $ (39.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 7.1 mil. $ (25.5 %) and Australia with 4.3 mil. $ (15.5 %). The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Actress (Dench), lost to Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line, and Costumes, lost to Memoirs of a Geisha. It was also nominated for 4 BAFTAs, 8 British Independent Film awards, a David di Donatello award, 3 Golden Globes, and won a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Frears returned with Le Court des Grands (2005, video documentary) and theatrically with The Queen (2006). Dench returned in with 4 voice and TV series credits prior to her theatrical return in Casino Royale (2006); Hoskins in Stay (2005). Mrs Henderson Presents is fresh at 67 % with a 6.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Mrs Henderson Presents?

Eden Lake (2008) - Watkins' survival horror debut is a relentlessly negative watch

♥♥

Kelly Reilly's light summer dress is contrasted to three menacing figures behind her on this blood-promising poster for James Watkins' Eden Lake

A young couple head out for a weekend camping by a desolate forest lake, which is soon to be upended by swanky apartments. But a group of violence-idolizing, ghastly kids and teenagers hang out at the lake ...

Eden Lake is the debut for English writer-director James Watkins (My Little Eye (2002), writer). Kelly Reilly (A Single Shot (2013)) is pretty rad here as the resourceful female lead, and Eden Lake has a certain pallid drive and a couple of great shots, (cinematography by Christopher Ross (Get Santa (2014))), but you would have to have a very special taste to not also find the film unusually unpleasant.
The plot's implicit message of not straying out into the wild nature, (where we don't belong), is reminiscent of The Descent (2005), a better English survival horror of the same period, only that film's ghoulish monsters are here nothing but physically normal human teenagers. They are led by Jack O'Connell (Home (2016), short) as a gruesomely etched youth without a shred of goodness in him.
The film is also enormously depressing and tiring, because the assaults that take place are so predictable and low-practical that one feels nudged to witness them while wishing the worst of ramifications possible for the young perpetrators and their scummy parents. Eden Lake is a fiercely negative experience.

Related posts:

James Watkins: The Woman in Black (2012) or, Creaking Galore
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess 

Fassbender gives an interview about his work on the film here

Cost: Reportedly 2 mil. $
Box office: 3.9 mil. $
= Big flop (1.95 times the cost)
[Eden Lake premiered 12 August (Berlin Fantasy Filmfest) and runs 91 minutes. Shooting took place in England, including at Pinewood Studios, from July - September 2007. Buckinghamshire's Black Park Lake played the titular, non-existing Eden Lake. The film opened #93 in 10 theaters to a weak 5k $ first weekend in North America, where it was only in release for 1 week and grossed tiny 7k $ (0.2 % of the total gross). The film's 3 biggest markets were its production country the UK with 870k $ (22.3 %), France with 739k $ (18.9 %) and Russia with 668k $ (17.1%). The film's themes played into Britain's ongoing 'Broken Britain' debate, and the film drew praise and criticism for its portrayal of a middle-class couple's trials at the mercy of depraved underclass youths. It was nominated for 2 British Independent Film awards. Watkins returned with The Woman in Black (2012). Reilly returned in Me and Orson Welles (2008), Michael Fassbender in The Devil's Whore (2008, miniseries) and then theatrically in Fish Tank (2009). Eden Lake is fresh at 81 % with a 6.6/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Eden Lake?

Calvary (2014) - McDonagh stands up to moral decline and for faith and the Catholic church in spite of everything

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Irish Movie of the Year

Brendan Gleeson in ecclesiastical robe for the poster for John Michael McDonaugh's Calvary, (which actually gives away the film's ending, if you analyze its elements)

In confession, Irish Father James receives a random death threat due to the crimes of the past from another man of the cloth. In the week leading up to his possible assassination by the unknown perpetrator  we get to know some of the members of the priest's fairly miserable congregation and the man himself.

Irish writer/director John Michael McDonagh (The Guard (2011)) moves up in the European cinematic 'league' with a more serious film here: Calvary is a religiously themed dramedy that both has society-critical bite and a really good priest-hero in Brendan Gleeson (The Guard), who inhabits the part as the region's fallible lodestar with integrity. 
Calvary also encumbers a contemplative treatment of the dark and widespread sexual crimes of the Irish Catholic church. It is painful to see, how the church, - and basic faith along with it, - has fallen so low in esteem partly also as a regrettable bi-product of this.
Chris O'Dowd (Bridesmaids (2011)) is fantastic in the film, proving his worth to this critic for the first time as an also talented dramatic actor.
The film has beautiful Irish music by Patrick Cassidy (Kill the Irishman (2011)) and a good ending that points forward. Its tone is very permanent in its disdain for what it portrays as bewildered and sinful ways of people today, and this hard-bitten gloom and doom could have done with a splash of sunlight, say in the form of a child. Still the film has terrific characters, writing and performances.

Related posts:

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Chris O'Dowd shows a hitherto unknown range and dramatic talent in John Michael McDonagh's Calvary

Watch the trailer for the movie here

Budget: 8 mil. $
Box office: 11 mil. $ (and counting)
= Flop

What do you think of Calvary?

Flight (2012) - Character study masterpiece from Zemeckis and Washington

♥♥♥♥♥♥

+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year
+ Best Drama of the Year

Denzel Washington at his very best, in Robert Zemeckis' Flight

Captain Whip Whitaker lands a crashing airplane so that only 6 of the passengers die. His drug- and alcohol abuse, however, is against him, while he desperately steers his lie-clouded life onwards in the aftermath.
Great American director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future (1985)) has here made his best film yet, his first actual masterpiece. Flight impresses by moving from one outstanding scene to the next, unpredictable to the last one. The film is like a shark in the water and not, as the old Woody Allen joke continues, a dead shark.
An Oscar-nominated Denzel Washington (Training Day (2001)) gives the performance of a lifetime, commanding his character spectacularly, and everyone else follows his lead: John Goodman (The Big Lebowski (1998)), Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)), Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda (2004), Kelly Reilly (Me and Orson Welles (2008)), James Badge Dale (The Departed (2006), Tamara Tunie (Wall Street (1987)) and Melissa Leo (Frozen River (2008)).
The flight crash is especially spectacular and real edge-of-your-seat-exciti. For anyone with anything resembling discomfort or fear of flying, that scene is sheer terror.
The photography is eminent (by Don Burgess (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)). Several scenes are held for a long time, building a fierce intensity, in the Oscar-nominated script by John Gatins (Coach Carter (2005)).
Flight is a film about alcoholism, existential flight - and flying. It is thought-provoking and rock-solid.
As we re-watch Flight over and over again, we can also look forward to Washington's next movie, a more traditional vigilante actioner titled The Equalizer (2014) and Zemeckis' next, a period drama about the Twin Tower high wire artist of 1974 played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt called To Reach for the Stars (2015).

Related posts:

Robert Zemeckis:  2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2012 in films - according to Film Excess
Back to the Future Part III (1990) or, The DeLorean Time Traveler's Last Adventure 
Back to the Future Part II (1989) or, The DeLorean Time Traveler Returns 
Back to the Future (1985) or, The DeLorean Time Traveler

Watch the trailer here

Budget: 31 mil. $
Box office: 161.7 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Flight?
What other movies command the subject of alcoholism as powerfully in your opinion?