The Little Stranger: Abrahamson Adapts Waters

The Ayres family could be the Ushers of the British interwar period. Their once great manor, Hundreds Hall, has fallen and it can’t get up. Yet, the dour new doctor remains fascinated by the house and the family, because of his experiences as an impressionable youth. The corrosive past is never past enough in Lenny Abrahamson’s The Little Stranger, adapted fairly faithfully from Sarah Waters’ novel, which opens today in New York.

Dr. Faraday’s interest Hundreds Hall started with his mother’s stories of her years spent in-service there. However, he became fully obsessed when he visited the estate in its heyday, for a children’s fair the Ayres family hosted. He was probably even more struck by the wild young Ayres daughter Susan, whose untimely death shortly thereafter was the initial spark of the family’s rapid decline.

Years later, Faraday (nobody calls him by his Christian name) returns to the village to join the local GP’s practice. One of his first house calls is the now dilapidated Hundreds Hall, where Roderick (not Usher) Ayres is technically head of household, but most of the practical matters fall to his sister, Caroline. When the villagers (including Faraday’s partner) talk about her, they say condescending things like: “she’s not pretty, but she has a good head on her shoulders.” In contrast, neither Roderick’s head nor his body healed properly after his return from WWI. He is also somewhat haunted by the death of sister Susan, as are the rest of Ayreses, which at this point only amounts to Caroline, and their imperious mother, Mrs. Ayres (again, no Christian name giveth).

So, is the ghost of Susan Ayres haunting Hundreds Hall? It very likely seems so, unless she is just a loud unnerving metaphor for her family’s profound dysfunction. Either way, Faraday still wants in, so he pursues Caroline like he never could before the Great War.

Obviously, the film and its source novel have a lot to say about class, as well as gender roles and maybe even the treatment of veterans, circa Downton Abbey. However, it still functions as an intriguingly suggestive ghost movie—not in the scare-the-pants-off-you tradition of The Conjuring, but in a what-the-heck-did-I-just-see-out-of-the-corner-of-my-eye kind of way.

There is also an eerie resemblance between Domhnall Gleason and Oliver Zetterström, who plays the youthful but still uptight Faraday, seen in fateful flashbacks. As a character, Faraday is a cold fish, who has let his covetousness warp his entire life, but he is only too credible. Ruth Wilson plays Caroline Ayres with an appropriately British stiff upper lip, but she still conveys a sense of a myriad of neuroses barely contained beneath her public façade. Of course, the great Charlotte Rampling is terrific as the regal yet haunted (in maybe more ways than one) Ayres matriarch.

The stately Hundreds Hall is also a terrific trump card for the film. It is endlessly atmospheric, whether seen in its heyday or its shabby nadir. This is a locale that cries out to be haunted, if it isn’t already. Even though it is not intended as a straight horror film, there is still some spooky stuff going on, particularly the business involving the servants summoning bells. It is subtle, but effective. Highly recommended as a genre film for viewers of PBS’s Masterpiece and equivalent British period dramas, The Little Stranger opens today (8/31) at several New York theaters, including the Regal E-Walk.

I, Anna: Charlotte Rampling Rocks a Trench Coat

Architecturally, there are two Londons of note. There is the Old England of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace and the glass and steel London of Norman Foster and the Barbican. The latter is becoming increasingly more recognizable, thanks to structures like “The Gherkin.” This is the world Anna Miller and DCI Bernie Reid uncomfortably inhabit in Barnaby Southcombe’s moody noir, I, Anna (trailer here), which releases today on DVD, from Icarus Films.

Anna Welles is a divorced grandmother with misgivings—about the fractured union, not her granddaughter or her single-mother grown-daughter Emmy. In fact, all three live together, with Welles sleeping in the living room New York studio style, while the two younger generations share her one bedroom. Encouraged by Emmy to do a spot of speed-dating, Welles winds up accompanying a mature player named George Stone to his tony flat. Things get a bit haywire from there, especially for Stone, whose noggin is bashed in by a blunt object.

To viewers, Welles looks like an excellent suspect, who even returns to the building to retrieve her umbrella from the lift. However, that is not how DCI Reid initially sees her, but he definitely notices the stylish woman. Stone’s resentful stepson with extensive drug debts seems like a far more likely perp. Of course, the investigation will inevitably turn toward Welles just as she and Reid make an unusually deep emotional connection.

Southcombe adapted Elsa Lewin’s one-hit wonder mystery novel, which was also inspired the late 1990s German film, Solo for Clarinet. Presumably, the clarinet was a bit of German seasoning. In its present screen incarnation, the narrative sort of resembles Looking for Mr. Goodbar, as if James M. Cain had rewritten it. Yet, first and foremost, Southcombe clearly conceived the film as a star vehicle-character study for Charlotte Rampling, who also happens to be his mother.

It should also be immediately conceded Rampling and her co-lead Gabriel Byrne do not look anywhere near the seventy and sixty-six years their Wikipedia pages admit to. Still, they are indeed mature adults, which makes their romantic relationship rather refreshing, even though it is obviously doomed. Together, their chemistry smolders, while individually Rampling implodes spectacularly and Byrne absolutely personifies rumpled angst. Bond and Avengers fans will also enjoy seeing Honor Blackman kill it with a tart-tongued extended cameo. Similarly, Eddie Marsan gives the film additional mystery cred playing DI Frank Towers (frankly, it is about time somebody programmed a Marsan retrospective).

In all likelihood, Southcombe probably did not intend I,A as a commentary on contemporary architecture, but it is baked in nonetheless—and more successfully than in Wheatley’s artlessly didactic High-Rise. They both orbit ultra-modern neighborhoods like Canary Wharf, but they are uneasy in their navigation. Reid seems to be a respected guv’nor (or at least he was), but he prefers to patrol the streets at 5:00 rather than spend time in his fishbowl office with floor-to-ceiling internal windows. Likewise, Rampling’s ageless sophistication looks out of place traversing the endless external concrete stairways of Stone’s complex.

As a mystery, I, Anna is not all that mysterious, but Ben Smithard’s cinematography is seductively noir. Essentially, Southcombe’s film is all about style and Rampling, with some Byrne thrown in for good measure. For most genre fans, that will be more than enough. Recommended for mature mystery/thriller patrons, I, Anna is now available on DVD from Icarus Films.

45 Years: Rampling and Courtenay

It is like Banquo’s ghost appearing forty-five years after Macbeth’s crime, except Geoff Mercer has nothing to feel guilty about. Right? That is exactly the question his wife Kate will wrestle with when word arrives of the discovery of his tragically deceased former girlfriend Katya’s body. The fact the she died before the Mercers even met is a crucial detail. Frankly, all the details are important in 45 Years (trailer here), Andrew Haigh’s rigorous examination of an ostensibly comfortable marriage under sudden stress, which opens this Wednesday in New York at the IFC Center.

The fact that she was named Katya is almost too much. She and Geoff Mercer were quite the item but she got too close to the edge while hiking in the Alps and over she went. After all these years, she has finally been found, perfectly preserved in an ice crevice. Initially, Geoff Mercer tries to shrug with “oh, surely I mentioned her” prevarications, but his distracted manner speaks volumes. Still, Kate tries to allow him a little melancholy nostalgia as she finalizes the plans for their forty-fifth anniversary party. Despite never having children, she always thought they had built something solid and meaningful. Yet, the absence of photos documenting their life together takes on nagging significance, especially since old Geoff still has pictures of Katya.

He does indeed, but audience members should not expect to see them. Shrewdly, Haigh only allows us oblique and obscured glimpses of the eternally young and vivacious Katya. How we see the Mercers seeing her is more important than getting a good gander at the spectral home-wrecker.

Casting 1960s era icons like Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay is almost too on-the-nose, but their considerable chops casts aside any gimmicky casting reservations. Courtenay no longer looks anything like a long distance runner, as we can plainly and shirtlessly see, whereas Rampling is still ramrod straight and naturally elegant. Yet, they still feel like a couple that is well familiar with each other. They are still two of the best in the business, who say more with silence and restraint than someone like a Meryl Streep ever could with all the shtick and histrionics at her disposal. There is just something uncomfortably honest about their performances. Just watching the film feels like an intrusion into a very private drama.

Haigh almost overdoes matters with references to the 1960s, but those clichéd pop songs Kate Mercer choses for the party rather underscore the generic nature of their relationship. They do not really have a song. She just picks something that fits. She and Geoff listen to the popular songs of their day, read the right books according to the right reviews, and hold properly reflexive left wing opinions to mark them as products of their generation, but none of that means anything. That truth and the other doubts it fosters are what makes 45 Years so potent. It is a mature, uncompromising film likely to earn (further) award notice for its two accomplished stars. Recommended for sophisticated palates, 45 Years opens this Wednesday (12/23) at the IFC Center.

Restless: The Cold War for American Public Opinion

Who would benefit from keeping America out of the war in Europe?  It is a question that will preoccupy a former British secret agent all her life.  She was supposed to be set-up in a manner that would badly discredit the British intelligence community with the American public.  She was also supposed to be dead.  However, the Russian exile has more lives than a cat in the Sundance Channel’s two part mini-series adaption of William Boyd’s Restless (promo here), which kicks off this Friday night.

When professional Cambridge student Ruth Gilmartin pays a visit to her mother’s country home, she finds the woman in the throes of paranoia, or so she presumes.  Sally Gilmartin claims there are people watching the house from the surrounding tree-line.  It all has something to do with her service as a spy during WWII.  At the time, she went by her real name, Eva Delectorskya.  Initially, this is all too much for Gilmartin to accept, but the site of a shadowy figure in the woods gives her pause.  Reading her mother’s file, she gets the gist of the story viewers see in periodic flashbacks.

A former Russian aristocrat, Delectorskya is recruited by British intelligence in France after her brother is murdered by Fascist thugs.  Lucas Romer will be her handler.  Although he is not inclined towards any sort of emotional involvement, sparks will eventually fly between them.  Delectorskya turns out to be a natural agent, but her missions are often rather dodgy.  Yet, somehow disaster always turns into success, at least within the agency bureaucracy.

Transferring to New York, they both assume roles at a dubious wire service that specializes in releasing disinformation to mislead the Germans.  From time to time, a little field work is required to plant an especially sensitive story.  Delectorskya assumed that was all she was doing when she accepts her fateful assignment to Albuquerque.  Unfortunately, she soon discovers someone at the agency sold her out.  The consequences of that ill-fated mission will linger for decades.

What more can you ask of a miniseries that gives you Charlotte Rampling buying a shotgun?  She plays Delectorskya/Gilmartin like the strong, intelligent woman she would have to be.  Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery also looks the part of her daughter, but her shocked incredulity goes on far too long.  In fact, the first installment does not lack for exposition, but the second part pays off with interest.

When the elements are all in place, Restless becomes quite a rich feast of skullduggery, helmed with a fair degree of style by Edward Hall.  As young and old Romer respectively, Rufus Sewell and Michael Gambon might not exactly be the spitting image of each other, but they are definitely at home with the murky intrigue.  A strong ensemble from top to bottom, character actor Adrian Scarborough makes a particularly strong impression as Delectorskya’s ally, Morris Devereux.  However, as the resilient young Delectorskya, Hayley Atwell is a bit pedestrian, lacking the Mata Hari allure one would expect from her.  Still, she becomes Charlotte Rampling, which is something.

While Boyd’s screen adaptation of his own novel is smart and tense down the stretch, his nondescript title never seems particular apt, but no matter.   Restless is a quality period production long on atmosphere that should satisfy for regular viewers of Masterpiece Mystery and BBC America’s mystery-thrillers. Recommended for fans of British television and espionage junkies, Restless begins this Friday (12/7) on the Sundance Channel and concludes one week later (12/14).

The Eye of the Storm: Schepisi Adapts the Great Australian Novel

Patrick White is Australia’s first and only Nobel Laureate for literature and this is the novel that cemented the prize for him in 1973.  It might seem like a logical but daunting work for an Australian filmmaker to tackle.  It turns out Fred Schepisi was the man to do it, along with screenwriter Judy Morris.  Death and family are equally inconvenient in the unusually tart and literate The Eye of the Storm (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The Hunter family’s grand matriarch is dying, but Elizabeth is determined to go out on her own terms.  This requires the requisite homecoming of her somewhat estranged son and daughter, for a final opportunity to pass withering judgment on their life choices.  It is not a prospect either Basil or Dorothy relishes, but they could certainly use their share of Mother Dearest’s fortune.

Basil Hunter is not destitute.  An actor of more fame than talent, he is a local celebrity made good, but remains ragingly insecure.  The divorced Dorothy is actually an aristocrat by marriage, but she is definitely title-rich, cash-poor.  While Mrs. Hunter always professed greater disappointment in her son, it is the daughter who harbors the deeper grudge, for reasons that are revealed in a series of flashbacks.

As a concept, emotionally stunted siblings watching their overbearing mother precipitously decline mentally and physically might sound appallingly depressing, but Eye is surprisingly witty.  It is sort of like witnessing Noel Coward characters at a time of existential crisis.  While White’s stream-of-consciousy work is notoriously resistant to dramatic adaptation, Morris opens it up quite nicely.  Paul Grabowsky’s gently swinging score, featuring Branford Marsalis’s rich, silky soprano saxophone, also helps keep the mood from getting too maudlin.

Frankly, the core family drama works remarkably well.  It is universally relatable, yet distinctly and idiosyncratically dysfunctional.  The perfectly cast, once-in-a-lifetime trio of Charlotte Rampling, Geoffrey Rush, and Judy Davis makes Morris’s cutting dialogue sing and verbally dance.  Observing them play with and against each other is a true movie-going pleasure.  Unfortunately, the subplots involving Mrs. Hunter’s private nurses do not have the same verve.  In fact, the treatment of Nurse Lotte, a caricatured Holocaust survivor, borders on the exploitative.  However, there is something redemptively humane about John Gaden’s portrayal of family friend and solicitor, Arnold Wyburg.

Despite the occasional misstep, Eye is a classy literary package, considerably more cinematic than the average BBC television production it could find itself compared to.  Offering three great lead performances, an excellent supporting turn, and an appealing soundtrack, the film has much to offer, all of which are elegantly marshaled by Schepisi, a strangely under-appreciated director.  Recommended for discriminating adult audiences, The Eye of the Storm opens this Friday (9/7) in New York at the Cinema Village.