Don't Worry Darling, Amsterdam and Mrs Harris Goes to Paris

 

I found Don't Worry Darling to be style over substance, but what style. The sets were wonderful, the costumes superb. Would you not love to live in this world. No, no, no. It looked great on the big screen, a cinematic experience if not a coherent story. We are supposed to see this idyllic place through the eyes of Alice (a brilliant turn from Florence Pugh) as she starts to wonder what is going on. And so do we. But because we have no idea of her background or family before she meets her husband ( a boring Harry Styles) the whole project seems out of balance. 

Florence Pugh tries to hold the thing together, but when there are websites with twenty seven unanswered questions (I had some more), we are not alone in wondering what is going on. There are clues along the way, but the ending asks more questions than answers. Now I liked director Olivia Wilde's Booksmart, but here a great idea lost itself in the realms of fantasy.

Another film where the reviews were mainly unfavourable, but this time I thought the story was fine and Amsterdam moved along with intelligence and thought. The dialogue is excellent as one would expect from writer/director David O. Russell. There is an amazing cast lead by Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington, but I actually preferred Mike Myers (a kind of reprise of his General Ed Fenech from  Inglorius Basterds) who was strangely brilliant as a most  unlikely MI6 agent alongside Michael Shannon from the CIA. A possible Oscar win, not for Christian Bale but for his make up.

I was surprised how unreal was Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. The idea to make a warm witty film about a cleaner's aspirations to buy a Dior dress was let down by implausibility. There are, however, some nice set pieces and the odd emotional scene, but giving a wonderful actress like Lesley Manville, as Mrs Harris, words straight out of Eliza Doolittle, bordered on embarrassing. Fortunately no-one seemed to care. We have some nice shots of the French capital (obviously), a lit Albert Bridge and of course, the Dior dresses. It is, thank goodness, not all sweetness and light. Not sure how they persuaded Isabelle Huppert to play the only nasty character, when all along I thought she was right. The movie starts in London in 1957 (when I was close by as a twelve year old) and when we hear Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode I thought we might be in for a great soundtrack. But that was it. There is good support from Jason Isaacs and Ellen Thomas, but I found the French cast all very flat. But towering above it all, thank goodness, is the imperious Lesley Manville.