An Impossible Mission

Like a twisted take on the vigilante sub-genre of the 1970s (think Billy Jack or Dirty Harry), writer/director Emerald Fennell turns a lens on modern society with her 2020 film Promising Young Woman – a most thought provoking tale for our time. Following Cassandra (Carey Mulligan – an absolute powerhouse here which has earned her an Oscar nod), she is a woman in her early thirties who is stuck in time. With a tragic event from her past that has forever changed her present and future, the former medical school student now finds herself working a dead end job at a coffee shop for friend Gail (Laverne Cox).

“He’s a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody. Doesn’t have a point of view, knows not where he’s going to. . .”. A slightly abridged version of the first verse and chorus of The Beatles’ iconic song “Nowhere Man”, these mesmeric lyrics tell the tale of a man afloat in his life with no anchor – lacking the passion, drive, and spirit to make him truly whole. Very much akin to the central character in 2021's Nobody, an action packed film written by Derek Kolstad (the scribe behind the John Wick franchise) and directed by Ilya Naishuller, Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk), is suffering from middle class (and aged) ennui. Though that last statement may sound more like something from Mike Nichols’ The Graduate than an action packed extravaganza, this is a far cry from a character drama.

A return to his roots after more than a decade making big budget studio pictures, Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen (2019), recaptures that unique mixture of crime and comedy (all done in a hyper-stylized visual way) that put him on the map back in 1998 with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (the successful follow up Snatch would come in 2000). If you don’t like Ritchie’s visual style and Limey-centred crime stories, then this likely won’t win you over, but if you’ve missed his unique method of film making since his last gangster flick (2008's RocknRolla), this one should feel as comfortable as a finely made bespoke suit.

A rare example of a remake done right, 2020's The Invisible Man, written and directed by Leigh Whannell, takes the general idea from the 1933 classic (as well as the 1897 novel by H.G. Wells) and updates it for the twenty-first century, never going too far, giving it a crisp, claustrophobic feeling. Stuck in a violent, psychologically draining relationship, we are dropped right into the troubled life of Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss), a woman who is trapped under the all-controlling dome of tech wiz millionaire Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) – who has hit it big in the field of optics. Disturbingly controlling, his abode, like the overall story, has been updated for the twenty-first century – instead of a gothic castle full of secret passages and torches, it is a sleek, ultra modern, hyper reflective open floor-plan mansion teetering on the edge of the ocean. . . with all of the technology needed to keep the outside world at bay (and the inside guests trapped).

If you were ever to create a list of unsafe places to travel, it is unlikely that Sweden would even make it anywhere near that piece of paper, or tech device – for those more modern individuals. Though after watching 2019's Midsommar, written and directed by Ari Aster (who exploded onto the scene with 2018's Hereditary), some people might be reconsidering the stunning Scandinavian country. A slow burner of a dark horror mystery fairytale in the vein of The Wicker Man (preferably the 1973 vehicle starring Christopher Lee rather than the 2006 remake with Nicholas Cage), this narrative starts off in a pretty dark and depressing way. Let’s just say that Dani (Florence Pugh – Little Women), who is in her early twenties, becomes orphaned in the blink of an eye.

Walking a tightrope between overt nostalgia picture and standalone film in its own right, 2019's Doctor Sleep comes to life thirty-nine years after Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining became an instant horror classic loved by almost everyone. . . except by its own author, Stephen King. This time, writer/director Mike Flanagan attempts to appease both sides, a gargantuan task that would could cause almost any talented film maker to crumble under the weighted pressure. . . yet somehow, he is able to stay on that extremely narrow tightrope, building an engaging narrative that should be fun for both hardcore fans and newbies to the so-called franchise. If The Shining was about addiction, Doctor Sleep looks at the long road back through rehabilitation to sobriety. Sometimes lost in all of the over-the-top craziness coming from Jack Nicholson’s fantastic portrayal of Jack Torrence, his poor son Danny must have had quite the life afterwards. Giving us a bird’s eye view into this character, he is now an alcoholic adult (played by Ewan McGregor), running from his past demons and any semblance of a normal life in the present.