Film Review of the Week


Horror

Night Swim (15)




Review: In certain cultures, water is considered sacred or magical and centuries of folkloric tradition commemorate the act of dropping coins into water to connect with spirits or gods that grant wishes. Writer-director Bryce McGuire’s horror thriller tosses several silver coins into a swimming pool during one pivotal sequence and wishes for a deeper dive into the four-minute short film he released with Rod Blackhurst in 2014 about a ghostly encounter in a suburban backyard. Night Swim expands a simple premise into a full-blooded 98-minute battle for one family’s survival, emboldened with neat camerawork above and below the waterline to milk discomfort from ominous ripples and reflections.

There are only so many ways McGuire’s script can creatively drown cast members before the thrashing becomes repetitive and the supernatural hokum noticeably treads water once the accursed clan deduces the central feature of their garden is a death trap in every sense. Pacing reduces to a (front) crawl before a lacklustre final reckoning. An unsettling prologue soaked in the night-time humidity of summer 1992 teases what might be lurking in the shimmering aqua but most of the film’s gentle scares take place in broad daylight so the nondescript title could be hosed down with something like gH2Osts or Ghouls By The Pool.

Professional baseball player Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell) is devastated when a degenerative neurological condition forces him into early retirement. He secretly hopes to return to the sport that gave him purpose but concerned wife Eve (Kerry Condon) urges him to be realistic for the sake of their two children, Izzy (Amelie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren), as the couple seek a forever home to put down roots and meet Ray’s accessibility needs. A conveniently vacant property with a neglected swimming pool catches their eye. “We’ll have water therapy in our own backyard,” chirrups Ray, still clinging to his dream of a comeback.

An ancient spring feeds the pool and Ray experiences an extraordinary turnaround in physical health by taking twice daily dips. However, medical miracles come at a price and his loved ones experience disturbing visions that seem to be luring them to the deep end. “What makes more sense? That the pool’s helping us or it’s haunted?” Izzy asks her terrified brother, summarising the madness swirling around them. “What if it’s both,” wisely replies Elliot.

Night Swim is an efficient and mildly unsettling paddle in troubled waters, anchored by a strong performance from Condon as a fiercely protective matriarch determined to shield her broken brood from further harm. Assured direction keeps the film afloat through preposterous plot twists. Horror films sink or swim by their scares and McGuire’s picture never makes a big splash in that regard, telegraphing water-logged misfortune far in advance.



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Drama

One Life (12A)




Review: On February 28 1988, former London stockbroker Nicholas Winton sat attentively in the front row of the audience at a taping of the BBC consumer advice programme That’s Life! unaware he would be the shell-shocked star of that episode. He watched silently as presenter Esther Rantzen held up the morning’s edition of The Sunday Mirror containing a three-page feature about his incredible efforts to help over 600 refugee Jewish children escape 1939 Czechoslovakia on Kindertransport before the borders closed. Director James Hawes’s handsomely crafted period drama winds up to this emotional wallop with elan.

Based on Barbara Winton’s biography of her humanitarian father, One Life is a stirring tale of quiet heroism in the lengthening shadow of the Nazi war machine, which is elevated by a wonderfully understated yet emotionally devastating performance from Sir Anthony Hopkins. The two-time Oscar-winning Welsh actor’s exemplary portrayal of Winton builds to a knockout final act that had tears coursing uncontrollably down my face. In most respects, Hawes’s picture feels comfortably familiar, oscillating between events 50 years apart at a contemplative and pedestrian pace to match the energy of an unassuming hero, who positively influenced hundreds of young lives.

In December 1938, shortly after the signing of the Munich Agreement which permits Hitler to annexe the Sudetenland, Winton (Johnny Flynn) prepares to visit Prague as part of the British Committee for Refugees in Czechoslovakia. He witnesses the desperate plight of families who have fled the Nazis and realises they are in a race against time before Hitler closes Europe’s borders. Marshalling the support of colleagues Doreen Warinner (Romola Garai) and Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp) in Prague and his formidable mother Babette (Helena Bonham Carter) in London, Nicky seeks expedited paperwork for Kindertransport to secure safe passage for refugee Jewish children to Britain. He eventually rescues 669 youngsters.

Fifty years later in leafy Maidenhead, Nicky (now played by Hopkins) is haunted by the faces of those he could not save. Wife Babette (Lena Olin) urges him to lay ghosts to rest by discharging their home of box files stuffed with documents, photographs and paraphernalia from those turbulent years. Painful memories bubble to the surface until a live taping of That’s Life! presented by Rantzen (Samantha Spiro) supplants guilt with genuine surprise and boundless gratitude.

One Life is a polite and respectful tribute to a man reverentially nicknamed “the British Schindler”. Scriptwriters Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake adopt an unfussy, linear approach to storytelling within the two timeframes, crafting a powerhouse supporting role for Bonham Carter. Distressing scenes are infrequent and atrocities seldom manifest in graphic detail on screen. Despite Winton’s self-doubt, one man did make a difference in a world scarred by conflict.



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Romance

Priscilla (15)




Review: Glimpsed through 21st-century eyes, the relationship between singer Elvis Presley and teenager Priscilla Beaulieu depicted in writer-director Sofia Coppola’s provocative drama should arouse suspicious minds from the moment the pair first kiss and he pulls away, whispering: “It’s time for you to go home little one.” Adapted from the memoir Elvis And Me by Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon, Coppola’s stylish feature dramatises the turbulent inner workings of one of the most high-profile celebrity marriages of the 1960s as a narrative counterpoint to Baz Luhrmann’s boisterous Elvis. In both pictures, the romance of a hip-swivelling rock’n’roll god and wide-eyed ingenue is a rollercoaster ride of tenderness and toxicity.

Priscilla glimpses events through its subjects heavily mascaraed eyes and consequently omits concert performances while the young bride-to-be is trapped in her gilded cage at Graceland. oppola intensifies our discomfort with the pronounced 41cm height difference between lead stars Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny, which minimises Priscilla in shared scenes so she looks childlike and easily manipulated. “When I call you, I need you to be here for me, baby,” Elvis tells Priscilla at one point and she willingly submits. Are You Lonesome Tonight? could be the soundtrack to their marriage if Coppola was predisposed to literal music cues. Instead, she jives around sharp edges of a topsy-turvy courtship including violent outbursts and attempted sexual assault.

Fourteen-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu (Spaeny) is introduced to singer Elvis Presley (Elordi), 10 years her senior, at a party in 1959 Bad Nauheim in Germany, where her stepfather Captain Beaulieu (Ari Cohen) is stationed in the US military. Elvis and Priscilla spend increasing amounts of time together and the starstruck teenager allays the concerns of her mother Ann (Dagmara Domimczyk) about the age difference. “He just lost his mother and he’s still grieving,” pleads Priscilla. “He trusts me.”

The relationship blossoms and Elvis persuades Captain Beaulieu and Ann to let Priscilla stay with him under the care of his cherished grandmother Dodger (Lynne Griffin) while she completes her education at a Catholic high school. Elvis is away for extended periods to make films or tour and Priscilla languishes alone at Graceland, tormented by magazine articles about Elvis’s supposed affairs.

Priscilla is a cautionary tale about the intoxicating allure of celebrity and the complicity of youth in its own corruption. Spaeny is mesmerising from the first moment we glimpse her sitting alone at a diner counter sipping a milkshake, and she expertly shepherds her character along an obstacle-strewn path to empowerment via prescription medication abuse and psychological torment. Elordi’s embodiment of Elvis is less eye-catching than Austin Butler but he teases out the darker side of a musical icon. Coppola’s study of an imbalance of power doesn’t leave us all shook up but we are certainly dishevelled.



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