Wise Gals

Disaster movies live and die by their clichés. What brings people into the seats are the doom-laden spectacles, though it is precisely these over-the-top depictions that often overshadow the human element that is oh-so-important in every one of these genre pictures. It is a tightrope to walk, with features from the past decade or so like The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and Pompeii wholly missing the point. A more realistic film that still delivers an intense natural disaster, but is rooted in the family that it portrays, is the 2015 Norwegian movie The Wave. Instead of ‘go big or go home’, writers John Kåre Raake and Harald Rosenløw-Eeg, along with director Roar Uthaug (who has been given the reigns of the Tomb Raider reboot starring Alicia Vikander) decide to take a more focussed, local, ‘home’ driven perspective, setting their story in a picturesque, almost otherworldly little fjord nestled in the heart of Norway. A small, tightknit community lives in the impressive locale; it takes in nearly as many tourists as the amount of villagers living there.

Some of you may recall famous clothing designer Tom Ford deciding to enter into the world of film making back in 2009. Though some were sceptical, his first foray into the movie business was a huge critical success, as A Single Man became one of the most lauded pictures of the year. Now seven years on, the choosy, multi-talented man has finally found another project that has piqued his interest. Based upon Austin Wright’s 1993 novel "Tony and Susan", Ford adapted it, changing the title to Nocturnal Animals. A complicated, three pronged tale, the story, at least in the real world, follows a wealthy art gallery owner named Susan Morrow (Amy Adams), a cold, calculating woman, who, despite seemingly having everything (a handsome husband named Hutton – Armie Hammer, a beautiful Hollywood hills house, good looks, and money), is empty and dead inside.

Unfurling the story that takes place immediately after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 2016's Jackie is an intimate portrayal of a woman in a dreadfully surreal crisis. Delving into a horrifically memorable moment from the past that has seemingly been looked at in every which way, Jackie succeeds at developing a multilayered story that goes beyond the surface, and thought-provokingly brings up questions of fact versus fiction, history versus myth/legend, idealism versus realism, as well as finding stark stoicism in the face of unimaginable horror. And horror it is, as director Pablo Larraín weaves together multiple threads that create a somber, melancholic mood that teeters on realistic dread, dismay and terror. It is something that is hard to fathom – as it is unbelieve to imagine that any of us will ever experience such a dreadful incident that is then followed by overwhelming media attention and scrutiny. Though vulnerable, our main character is able to steady herself, finding a poised grace in order to stand strong, being a calm, enduring, mother-like figure that will help guide the nation through one of its darkest hours.

"Grand Hotel. . . always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens". But we know this is not so. The winner of Best Picture at the 1932 Academy Awards (the only film to ever win the big prize without being nominated for any other Oscar), Grand Hotel is the first film to ever bring together a who’s who cast to create an ensemble. Breaking the mould, where studios would have had only one or two of their stars in a single film (to cut down on costs as well as avoid strife), MGM united five of their top actors. The iridescent Greta Garbo plays Grusinskaya, a temperamental prima ballerina who is depressed and disillusioned, feeling like her best days are behind her. The versatile John Barrymore plays the Baron, a man who, despite his aristocratic title, has fallen on hard times, desperate for money.

A little ragamuffin – strong willed, feisty and wily, finds himself waking up on a bench at a train station with his older brother nowhere in sight. With his mother at home, he shouts for his missing brother, but nothing comes of it. He searches an abandoned train, only to fall asleep sometime in the night. When he wakes, the still empty train is moving. When it finally stops, he finds himself in Calcutta, nearly two thousand miles away from his hometown, not knowing the Bengali language or having anywhere to turn. It is this bizarre and unfortunate circumstance that is the genesis and heart of the story Lion, first time filmmaker Garth Davis’ moving drama. The young boy is Saroo (Sunny Pawar), his fatherly older brother is Guddu (Abhishek Bharate), and his caring impoverished mother is Kamla (Priyanka Bose). Though theirs is a tough life in a rural Indian town, filled with hardship and many struggles, love permeates their family.

Utilizing the same name as the quaint village in which it is set, Manchester by the Sea depicts the lives of a family struggling with the recent death of a father and brother. The story follows Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck), a man wallowing in a morass of pain, sorrow and apathy. The quiet, introverted gent works as a handyman in Quincy, Massachusetts, though soon gets a call that his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) is in the hospital. Rushing to Manchester, with its clapboard houses and brisk, windy, wintery weather, he is too late. Having the unenviable task of tracking down his nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges) to tell him the dispiriting news (he finds him at hockey practice), he soon discovers that his brother has left him in charge of raising the sixteen year old. While in the picturesque locale, people point, stare, whisper and snarl at the former resident (a mystery that will, in its own fine time, be revealed).