Film Review of the Week

Drama

Blue Moon (15)

Review: A barnstorming and transformative lead performance from Ethan Hawke as celebrated lyricist Lorenz Hart, the waspish wordsmith responsible for The Lady Is A Tramp and My Funny Valentine with composer Richard Rodgers, puts a spring in the step of director Richard Linklater’s intimate comedy drama. Set over the course of one turbulent night in March 1943, when a curtain rises on one of the great Broadway musicals, Blue Moon is a handsomely crafted study of artistic endeavour and bruised egos, peppered with the kind of bile-slathered one-liners that often catch the eye of Academy Award voters.

Recovering alcoholic Lorenz Hart (Hawke) glides into one of his favourite New York City haunts, Sardi’s restaurant on West 44th Street, having quietly slipped out of the opening night performance of the musical Oklahoma! at the St James Theatre. The rootin’ tootin’ production is the work of Lorenz’s former creative partner, composer Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), and rival lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney). Through gritted teeth, Lorenz is loathed to admit that the show is destined to be a smash hit.

Irked by Rodgers’ impending success without him, Lorenz trades acidic barbs with bar man Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) and pianist Morty (Jonah Lees) while he enthuses about a burgeoning obsession with production designer Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley). “There’s something appealingly ethereal about her face,” he rhapsodises.

Lorenz awaits the arrival of Richard and an opening night entourage of producers and cast and in the interim, he talks to writer EB White (Patrick Kennedy), who is perched at a table in the restaurant. Their subsequent conversation sparks creative inspiration for White’s children’s book Stuart Little. When cast and crew of Oklahoma! eventually spill into Sardi’s, eagerly anticipating glowing reviews from New York critics, Lorenz prepares to conceal his bitterness or jealousy behind a smile: “Time for the real performance of the evening!”

Blue Moon is dominated by Hawke’s spectacular embodiment of an artistic dynamo, who couldn’t escape the vice-like grip of addiction and would die a few months after the events depicted in Linklater’s slow-burning picture. Sporting a precarious combover of dark hair and a vinegary wit that is sometimes unkind, Hawke relishes the meaty monologues in Robert Kaplow’s script, which playfully address Lorenz’s rumoured sexual preferences and his resentment that the biggest hit of Rodgers’ career would be the first show with another lyricist. “Am I bitter? Yes,” Lorenz candidly confides to Cannavale’s long-suffering barman.

Linklater’s camera pirouettes around the restaurant space as Lorenz’s fragile dreams of a creative reunion with Rodgers are rebuffed and chinks in his armour are exposed. Robust supporting performances, including Scott’s weary former collaborator, add saltiness and gentle spice to the mix.

Drama

Christy (15)

Review: Director David Michod’s heavyweight boxing drama, based on the life of Christy Martin who blazed a trail for women in the sport in the 1990s and was affectionately nicknamed the Coal Miner’s Daughter because of her humble West Virginia upbringing, delivers its most devastating blows outside the ring. If you don’t know the harrowing true story of Martin’s personal struggles that fuelled her hard-fought rise to glory then the final 30 minutes of Christy are a gasp-inducing dramatic knockout.

In 1989, college basketball player Christy (Sydney Sweeney) finds “her thing” when she enters an amateur boxing competition and knocks out her opponents. Her homophobic mother, Joyce (Merritt Wever), is troubled by rumours about her daughter’s relationship with classmate Rosie (Jess Gabor) so Christy languishes in the closet and accepts help from a coach, James V Martin (Ben Foster), who eventually becomes her husband. “I’m just a regular wife who happens to knock people out for a living,” Christy cheerfully explains to one interviewer as she signs a contract with boxing promoter Don King (Chad L Coleman) and agrees to a high-profile under card match against Irish fighter Deirdre Gogarty (Stephanie Baur) on the March 1996 bill between Mike Tyson (Adrian Lockett) and Frank Bruno.

Supported by her ringside team of Big Jeff (Bryan Hibbard) and Miguel Diaz (Gilbert Cruz), Christy is an unstoppable force but behind closed doors, she is brutalised and belittled by her husband James, who repeatedly tells her that he will kill her if she dares to leave him. A showdown with Laila Ali (Naomi Graham), daughter of Muhammad Ali, rocks Christy’s confidence and a close bond with rival fighter Lisa Holewyne (Katy O’Brian) deepens the rift in her marriage.

Christy is a knuckle-bruising showcase for Sweeney and Foster, who vanish into their psychologically damaged characters, both cranking up tension as their spouses’ verbal jabs (“What kind of man has a job that can’t pay the bills?”) escalate into life-threatening physical injury. Michod’s script, co-written by actress Mirrah Foulkes who appeared in his scintillating 2010 debut Animal Kingdom, pulls no punches in its matter-of-fact depiction of domestic violence and degradation behind closed doors.

Boxing sequences are slickly choreographed and cinematographer Germain McMicking dances inside the ring to capture every cut and jab in sweat-speckled close-up. However, there is an aching predictability to the heroine’s fall from grace in an arena where bullish self-confidence wins half the battle against taller and heavier opponents. Wever’s softly spoken but venomous matriarch, who is unapologetically blinded by bigotry, draws considerable blood in her limited screen time. The film’s jaw-dropping final flurry picks up points dropped in a sluggish middle hour.

Animation

Zootropolis 2 (PG)

Review: Welcome back to the jungle. Byron Howard and Jared Bush return to the directors’ chairs for a joyful, intrigue-laden squeakquel that effortlessly recaptures the animal magic of the Oscar-winning 2016 animated feature set in a colourful world of anthropomorphic critters, who are determined to get along. Bush’s knockabout script is crammed with almost as many visual gags and in-jokes as the original including a cameo for mouse Remy from Ratatouille and cheeky nods to The Silence Of The Lambs and The Shining that will glide over young heads but delight movie-savvy teens and parents.

One week has passed since rabbit police officer Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and con artist fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) exposed the skullduggery of Zootropolis’s ewe assistant mayor Dawn Bellwether (Jenny Slate) and ushered in a new era of cross-species collaboration. Now paired as crime-fighting partners at the Zootropolis Police Department under Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), Judy and Nick forcefully insert themselves into a sting operation down by the docks. Their clumsy intervention leads to a PR disaster for the new mayor, former action movie star Brian Winddancer (Patrick Warburton), who made his name with The Neighsayer franchise.

As punishment, Judy and Nick submit to couples counselling led by quokka therapist Dr Fuzzby (Quinta Brunson). Soon after, evidence emerges that blue venomous pit viper Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan) is at large in Zootropolis. The fanged reptile threatens the upcoming zootennial gala to celebrate 100 years since lynx Milton Lynxley (David Strathairn) and his powerful clan invented the weather walls that divide and artificially sustain meteorological conditions in the biomes including Rainforest District, Sahara Square and Tundratown. Judy and Nick’s reputations hinge on apprehending Gary and they reluctantly enlist help from conspiracy theorist beaver Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster), host of the Scales & Tales Of The Weird podcast.

Zootropolis 2 is the bee’s knees, following the template of the first film to orchestrate a wild goose chase (in the best possible sense) across different biomes that reaffirms the power of judging all creatures great and small by their words and deeds, not their appearance. Goodwin and Bateman reprise their bickering double-act with gusto and elicit a few tears too in a surprisingly moving second act. Ironically monikered three-toed sloth Flash from the Department of Mammal Vehicles returns for a terrific visual gag and the small-time weasel criminal selling bootleg DVDs on the streets of Zootropolis has updated his cheeky inventory. Voice cast also conceals delightful surprises – yes, Michael J The Fox is brought to life by his namesake.

Pop diva Gazelle (Shakira) shakes her haunches to a new song Zoo, which promotes self-expression (“We’re wild and we can’t be tamed!”) and boasts Ed Sheeran as one of the writers. Directors Howard and Bush canter through impeccably animated set pieces with confidence and brazenly kick the barn door open for more close encounters of the feathered and furry kind in the future. We are better zoogether.