Film Review of the Week

Drama

Glenrothan (12A)

Review: The cliches and familial angst flow almost as freely as the distilled whisky in actor Brian Cox’s disappointing film directorial debut. Shot on location around Scotland including the leafy Stirlingshire village of Gartmore, Glenrothan is an overly familiar tale of estranged brothers and deep psychological wounds, which are healed with surprisingly little emotional outlay on the part of broadly sketched characters.

Forty years after he left home with his angry father’s words ringing in his ears, Donal Nairn (Alan Cumming) has established a successful blues club in Chicago, where he tinkles the ivories and occasionally bursts into song with his daughter Amy (Alexandra Shipp), who serves drinks and works behind the bar. Donal wilfully ignores a letter from his older brother Sandy (Cox), current custodian of the family’s distillery snuggled in the verdant splendour of the Scottish Highlands.

Sandy’s health is failing and he is keen to make amends for the past. Amy finds the letter, shortly after their club burns down, and she persuades her father to accompany her and granddaughter Sasha (Alexandra Wilkie) on a long overdue trip to Glenrothan. Donal’s childhood confidante Jess (Shirley Henderson), who he abandoned without warning four decades ago, is the resident master distiller – a role once earmarked for him – and she urges reconciliation with Sandy: “Forty years is a long time to hold a grudge!” Painful memories flood back as Donal encounters faces from the past and the brothers contemplate the distillery’s future once Sandy relinquishes the reins to begin an urgent course of chemotherapy.

Glenrothan makes wee mountains out of dramatic molehills, blowing up young Donal’s clash of personalities with his bullying father to meekly justify the protracted emotional divide between siblings who always looked out for each other. Cinematographer Jaime Ackroyd showcases the unspoilt natural beauty of Scottish locales while sporadic flashbacks glimpse fiery exchanges between young Donal and Sandy and their purse-lipped pa.

Cumming and Cox are gifted and fiercely patriotic actors so, on paper at least, they are snug fits to portray siblings under duress in picturesque surroundings. Unfortunately, screenwriters David Ashton and Jeff Murphy don’t distil their top-tier ingredients into an appealing dram, belabouring each predictable interlude. A tepid romance between Cumming and Henderson catalyses the film’s stand-out scene – a Romeo and Juliet-style exchange from a bedroom window – but the dramatic fireworks come too late. You can hear the unpleasant grinding of the plot’s cogs as the script forcefully manoeuvres characters towards achingly predictable and dewy-eyed declarations of remorse and regret that should allow everyone to say slainte to a brighter future before the end credits roll.

Musical

Kiss Of The Spider Woman (15)

Review: Jennifer Lopez razzle dazzles in multiple roles in a high-kicking musical drama based on the Tony Award-winning stage production, which boasts a book by Terrence McNally and music and lyrics by Cabaret’s ringmasters John Kander and Fred Ebb. Director Bill Condon spins a tangled web of visually dazzling set pieces around a grimly compelling prison drama, harnessing some of the dynamism of his behind-the-camera contributions to Chicago, Dreamgirls, The Greatest Showman and the live action Beauty And The Beast.

In 1983 Argentina, the military dictatorship hunts down dissidents and critics, and thousands disappear without a trace. Trans window dresser Luis Molina (Tonatiuh) is one of the casualties of this so-called Dirty War. Luis identifies as a woman and she is arrested and convicted of public indecency and moved into a shared cell with political prisoner Valentin Arregui Paz (Diego Luna). The warden (Bruno Bichir) demands information about Valentin’s revolutionary comrades and secretly approaches Luis with the promise of parole in exchange for turning snitch.

It’s a tantalising offer for Luis, whose mother is sick. Instead, Luis buoys Valentin’s spirits by telling stories about her favourite film starring glamorous screen idol Ingrid Luna (Lopez). Luis excitedly explains the movie’s plot about a magazine publisher, Aurora (Lopez), who falls under the spell of dashing photographer Armando (Luna). Fate – in the form of a malevolent spirit called the Spider Woman (Lopez… again) – cruelly conspires to drive the couple apart. Life behind bars imitates Technicolour fantasy as cohabiting inmates fall in love and Luis faces a stark choice between passion and loyalty.

Based on Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel, Kiss Of The Spider Woman is a touching tribute to the enduring power of the human spirit in the face of adversity and a reminder of cinema’s ability to open an escape hatch from the everyday. “Sorry to break the news but nobody sings in real life,” quips Valentin, vibrating with disdain for musicals as an artform. “Well maybe they should!” defiantly responds unapologetic escapist and dreamer Luis. Her stand-out solo number “She’s A Woman” is just as mesmerising on celluloid as on stage and Tonatiuh relishes every emotion-soaked syllable.

Lopez channels the vivacity of one of musical theatre’s undeniable powerhouses, Chita Rivera, who originated the lead role on stage and earned a Tony Award. The Bronx-born star’s exuberance is infectious and every time she is off screen, Condon’s picture experiences a palpable drop in energy. Style repeatedly wins the tug of war with substance as cinematographer Tobias A Schliessler adopts a visual shorthand of different colour palettes and screen ratios to distinguish the lingering threat of violence in prison from the bedazzled splendour of musical numbers. The show’s closing number says it all: Only In The Movies.

Horror

Lee Cronin's The Mummy (18)

Review: Lee Cronin, Irish writer-director of Evil Dead Rise, resurrects one of cinema’s classic monsters in a supernatural horror thriller that wholeheartedly earns its 18 certificate for strong gore, violence and graphic scenes of body mutilation. You may never approach cutting a toenail the same way again after the filmmaker turns an act of self-care into a stomach-churning set piece that heralds a blitzkrieg of nauseating special effects in the chaotic second hour.

Television reporter Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor) and pregnant wife Larissa (Laia Costa) are stationed in Cairo for his job with their young daughter Katie (Emily Mitchell) and son Sebastian (Dean Allen Williams) when the unimaginable happens. A mysterious woman (Hayat Kamille) snatches Katie from the back garden of their rented home and uses an approaching sandstorm as cover for her escape. Eight years later, the emotionally broken family is living in Albuquerque in New Mexico with Larissa’s devoutly religious mother, Carmen (Veronica Falcon). The doting grandmother provides support for Charlie and Larissa, teenager Sebastian (now played by Shylo Molina) and youngest child Maud (Billie Roy), who was just a bump when Katie vanished.

Out of the blue, authorities in Egypt confirm Katie has been found – alive inside a 3,000-year-old sarcophagus. A joyful reunion turns into a living nightmare when the Cannons are reunited with Katie (now played by Natalie Grace) and she is visibly changed from the cherubic girl who left them. An ancient evil manifests and slowly poisons Charlie and Larissa’s relationship. Back in Egypt, Detective Dalia Zaki (May Calamawy) uncovers shocking evidence of a mummification ritual passed down through generations to imprison a demonic force.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is a hellish far cry from the knockabout Indiana Jones-style fun of the trilogy starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. The writer-director takes obvious delight in imagining skin-crawling scenarios to rival the cheese grater scene in Evil Dead Rise, allowing more than one creepy crawly to scuttle inside a screaming mouth. From the moment Katie returns to her shellshocked family’s embrace, the gore quotient increases and no member of the Cannon clan is safe from horrific injury (often inflicted while under the control of the malevolent presence).

The Egyptian mythology underpinning the carnage teeters on hokum when Cronin introduces found footage horror to his overstuffed mix. Blood-spattered calamity is staged with brio but Reynor and Costa’s central relationship is almost as emaciated as their mummified daughter, which undermines the spouses’ sacrifices to protect their imperilled brood. As Katie’s bandages come off, so the film unravels with cannibalistic fervour and Cronin chases a satisfying way to wrap up years of anguish and guilt. He deliberately leaves the sarcophagus ajar for the ancient evil to return but I’d be content if he kept mum on the idea of further evisceration.