Film Review of the Week

Drama

Giant (15)

Review: Sylvester Stallone is one of the executive producers of writer-director Rowan Athale’s lightweight biographical drama about the rise of Prince Naseem Hamed, glimpsed though the eyes of the boxer’s garrulous trainer, Dublin-born former professional fighter Brendan Ingle. He ran the St Thomas’ Boys and Girls Club boxing gym in the Wincobank neighbourhood of Sheffield and identified Naseem’s potential at a tender age but was estranged from the outspoken brawler at the time of his death in 2018.

Athale’s picture rewinds to the mean streets of 1981 Sheffield where a rising tide of racism impacts Yemeni shop owner Caira Hamed (Elika Ashoori). She enrols her three boys at the gym and Brendan (Pierce Brosnan) gravitates towards the youngest, seven-year old Naseem (Ghaith Saleh), who is already straddling the thin line separating self-confidence and arrogance. Naseem blossoms (played in later years by Ali Saleh and eventually Amir El-Masry) and Brendan stokes his protege’s self-belief to prepare him for glory inside the ring: “If you climb close enough to the sun, you’ll cast the shadow of a giant.”

A 1994 bout against Vincenzo Belcastro on home turf at Sheffield’s Ponds Forge Arena secures the European bantamweight title and Frank Warren (Toby Stephens) enthusiastically hitches his wagon to Naseem and Brendan. The boxing promoter recognises the sport’s audience is changing and wants to market Naseem to boys “who want the swagger… and the razzmatazz”.

Giant is a robust and conventional sporting biopic that venerates Brendan’s role, especially when it comes to moulding young minds at the gym. Brendan tells a journalist (Olivia Barrowclough) his facility is a vital community resource that teaches kids life lessons and provides a healthy focus for their frustrations. Brosnan exudes warmth and resilience as the inspirational mentor, who is blinkered to the growing emotional divide to his star talent.

Brendan’s wife (Katherine Dow Blyton) identifies the warning signs of a repeat of a previous breakdown in communication: “Same story, different actors,” she quietly observes. El-Masry mimics Naseem’s exuberant physicality with aplomb and is in impressive shape for action sequences but Athale’s script doesn’t delve deeply into the psychological meat of the surrogate father-son dynamic. Consequently, the actor isn’t stretched beyond occasional blow-ups. Dramatic licence in the closing act attempts to paper over these visible cracks.

Archive footage and photographs embedded in the end credits attest how closely filmmakers have recreated milestones in Brendan and Naseem’s professional partnership. Athale ducks and dives in the opening minutes with a stylish black and white slow-motion sequence that nods to his cinematic inspirations (Raging Bull, Rocky). Those two Oscar-winning heavyweights are far beyond the reach of Giant’s energetic jabs but Athale’s modest picture lands sufficient body blows to stay on its feet until the final bell tolls.

Drama

Hamnet (12A)

Review: Written before Hamlet, Shakespeare’s political thriller dedicated to the bloodthirsty history of Julius Caesar counsels the audience to embrace life without fear: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” The Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon heeds his own iambic pentameter in director Chloe Zhao’s exquisitely moving drama adapted for the screen by the filmmaker and author Maggie O’Farrell from her novel about Shakespeare’s descent into grief with wife Agnes after the death of their beloved 11-year-old son.

The picture opens in pastoral bliss with Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) wafting through a forest with her hawk, feeding rumours that she is the daughter of a witch, while William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) tutors boys in Latin to settle the debts of his bullying and brutish father (David Wilmot). The scholar falls under Agnes’s spell and they plan to marry after consummating the relationship. “I would rather you went to sea than marry this wench,” spits William’s disapproving mother, Mary (Emily Watson).

The couple persist and raise a family in Stratford-upon-Avon comprising daughter Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) and twins Judith (Olivia Lynes) and Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe). London is the hotbed of theatrical creativity, forcing William to leave Warwickshire for extended periods while Agnes tends to their brood. During a period of absence, young Hamnet honours a promise to his father to be brave and the urchin succumbs to the ravages of bubonic plague in place of his twin. “Take me,” the tyke whispers to the blackness that has come for his sister. William returns home to discover his boy’s tragic fate. Heartbreaking loss divides the couple and William channels his emotions on to parchment as he prepares to stage the tragedy of a Danish prince driven to madness by his father’s ghost.

Hamnet is a bewitching and bountiful banquet, elegantly combining the earthy colours of Lukasz Zal’s cinematography, heartrending dialogue torn from the pages of O’Farrell’s novel, impeccable production design and composer Max Richter’s elegiac electronic score derived from sounds of Elizabethan-period instruments. Buckley’s performance is towering. The guttural scream that emanates from Agnes’ body when Hamnet takes his final breath in her arms, after various herbal potions fail to loosen death’s tightening grip, pierces like a dagger. Only an injustice would deny her the Academy Award for Best Actress in March.

Mescal is quieter though no less compelling as a father robbed of an opportunity to say goodbye to his boy. His anguish drip feeds into an emotionally shattering and cathartic final 10 minutes that director Zhao orchestrates with consummate flair and sensitivity, aided by an impeccable supporting turn from Jupe’s older brother Noah. On the stage of the Globe Theatre, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. Zhao’s film is fragrant and intoxicating perfection.