Emily, The Banshees of Inisherin and Triangle of Sadness

 

Here are the Brontes once again. This time the film concentrated on the sister's lives before they became writers. Writer/director Frances O'Connor sensibly wanted us to know how Emily was inspired to write Wuthering Heights. Emma Mackey is terrific as Emily, all ferocious energy that is particularly aimed at  her father. Adrian Dunbar is equally good as the parish priest. he is so familiar to us on British TV, but here he is so much better. The story, I imagine, takes liberties with the truth. Emily's doomed affair with tutor William Weightman is all madness. But O'Connor wants us to see how this young woman could write something so modern and dramatic. Even her father is impressed.

I was slightly disappointed by The Banshees of Inisherin. Martin McDonagh has reunited Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in a flimsy story set on an island off the mainland of Ireland. It's 1923 and a civil was is raging across the sea. Whilst the writing is, of course, wonderful, the thin plot revolves around the repercussions of the two men's alienation. The performances, location and the dialogue are all fine. I particularly liked Kerry Condon (another of Mcdonagh's tribe from Three Billboards}. She deserves a supporting actress nomination.

A biting satire on the ultra rich as they inhabit a luxury yacht. All they seem to do all day is take selfies. Of course we get comparisons to the crew and the even more lowly foreign workers as toilet cleaners and deck scrubbers. Triangle of Sadness is a film in three acts, the shortest being the terrible first. On board for the second, we come across the main characters including an unreal drunk captain (why Woody Harrelson?) and a fat mega rich Russian plated by Zlatko Buric. His is the best performance by far. When asked how he made his money his standard reply is "in shit", actually fertilizer. At least he was fun. All the others seem to have been recruited for how they appear, not how they can act. Strange casting.

The second act revolves around a storm. It was again unreal that the food served for dinner was so inappropriate. But writer director Ruben Ostlund wanted the rich to suffer. This part "ends" with the elderly rich English couple (nobody says "We are from Great Britain") who made their money in grenades before they traded up to landmines. There has been much criticism of the third act, although I found it OK. The best thing was that I didn't see it coming. It's a long film (too long) but it makes a big impression, if not all in a good way.