So I've been busy and completed two new films in the last 14 hours or so.
Damsel: This just dropped on Netflix yesterday, starring Millie Bobby Brown and some other top cast in supporting roles. Damsel is a flawed film in some obvious ways, the most obvious being the writing and the directing (in terms of actor direction). The plotting is okay, but it's the dialogue (which dominates the first 20 minutes of film) which is barely functional and completely generic, resulting in the cast sounding like they are just cosplaying generic fantasy world. Worse, I didn't know who was cast in this film and saw two characters who I decided were Fake Ray Winstone and Fake Angela Bassett (semi-look/sound-alikes) until I happened to look them up on my phone and realized they actually WERE Ray Winstone and Angela Bassett. (OOF!) It felt like they didn't know their characters' personalities or emotional states and the director just stuck them on autopilot -- fortunately, they both have a better handle later in the film.
Robin Wright is an obvious cast who is just playing a caricature of Claire Underwood from the series finale of House of Cards. However, I am pretty sure she was meta-cast because of her well-known reference point as Buttercup in "The Princess Bride," who kind of needed saving. As the on-the-nose title suggests, Brown ends up NOT one of those kinds of female leads.
While I'm not a diehard fan of Brown, once she's the only character from a plot perspective she actually carries this film convincingly. The film itself won't make any "best of" lists that aren't Nickelodeon, but I think it will get her future roles and prove she can do stuff outside Stranger Things.
There's a lot to poke fun at in the first 20 minutes (cheesy, generic fantasy speak, clueless characterization to advance the plot, people making obvious bad decisions, obvious lies that are not properly challenged), but as the rest of the film revolves around Elodie and the dragon playing mouse and cat throughout the dragon's caves and some late-film plot twisting, it actually becomes a lot more interesting. Elodie actually is quite smart and resilient, and does smart things. Some characters redeem themselves, others do not. I like the developments between Elodie and the dragon, how the dragon was wronged but is also part of the perpetual system of destruction that they are all enmeshed, and how this situation ultimately gets resolved out of equal parts justice, ingenuity, and compassion.
So despite the film starting like a 3/10, it ends up as a 6/10 or 7/10 film in its best moments.
Poor Things: This dropped on Hulu on Thursday. I am happy to see Lanthimos finally getting the mainstream recognition he deserves, although The Favorite and The Lobster did put him on the map. This story of the evolution of Bella Baxter is amusing, empathetic, outrageous, disturbing, and well-told, full of the typical kinds of lines that show up in a Lanthimos film:
Bella Baxter: I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence.
Bella starts out at the mercy of all the men in her society (and a few of the women) but is constantly learning and developing herself, based on the pretext of the film. There's a lot of sexuality in this film (so I'll be surprised if it's voted as Best Picture, because Americans), but if you are capable of accepting all it has to give, it's a really enjoyable experience. I find Bella's adventurous tour of various European cities and ship voyages to be beautiful from a set design and cinematographic view -- just absolutely gorgeous sets and backdrops, almost surreal at times (reminds me a bit of "The City of Lost Children" in concept), and while it's generally a recognizable time period of our own history, there are steampunk elements introduced as well.
Mark Ruffalo's character is perhaps the worst of the lot, although a tangential connection from Bella's past (Christopher Abbott) would be even more horrible if he didn't have so little screen time; and normally Ruffalo plays likable characters, but here he moves from acceptable to pathetic to terrible. One can't help but view the film on one level as a woman (not just a person) navigating male society and all the expectations placed on her. Poor Things could be a criticism of the pitfalls of "modern" society but also can refer to the women who are penalized by its rules or (even more blatantly) to the men who capitalize on them, resulting in them been weak, ineffectual, and dependent creatures when anyone does not follow them. Even the men who just detach from the system lose something as well.
Bella Baxter: If I know the world I can improve it.
Harry Astley: You can't. This is the real point. Don't except the lie of religion, socialism, capitalism. We are a fucked species. Know it. Hope is smash-able, realism is not. Protect yourself with the truth.
Bella Baxter: I realize what you are now Harry. Just a broken little boy who cannot bear the pain of the world.
Harry Astley: I suppose so.
Maybe the strongest wisdom comes from the Paris madam who Bella works with for a short time, when Bella quizzes her on why she must be part of this system of use at all:
Swiney: We must work. We must make money. But more than that Bella, we must experience everything. Not just the good, but degradation, horror, sadness. This makes us whole Bella, makes us people of substance. Not flighty, untouched children. Then we can know the world. And when we know the world, the world is ours.
Bella Baxter: I want that.
Swiney: Now go and fuck someone and bring me ten francs.
The men of this world (and the wealthy) avoid some kinds of experience, focusing only on the pleasurable and powerful, ignoring the vulnerable, the poor, the sad, the weak. But embracing all of experience and knowing what it means is an act of grounding. Innocence (where Bella started) gives way to knowledge, and thus illumination, and finally strength and direction.
There are bits and pieces of the film that seem to tarnish Bella a bit (like her decision at the end on how to deal with Alfie Blessington), but overall this is easily a 9/10 film.
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