Dune: Part Two, Drive Away Dolls and Mother's Instinct

 

When I reviewed Dune Part 1, I mentioned the "impressive hardware and CGI" but that they "overwhelm the story". Dune Part 2 is much the same but longer. It could easily have lost an hour. I watched it in the IMAX screen as that was how it was filmed. I have to say that, for me, it was just not worth the extra price. The script is fine, such as it was. The acting is all OK except for Austin Butler who, I thought was totally miscast as the baddie. I'm not sure if I believed in Timothy Chamalet as a great leader? The story seemed to be as incoherent as ever, I guess if you had read the Frank Herbert novel a few times it might have made more sense. So what we have left is spectacle and the IMAX screen. But give me a proper story any time.

Whilst most of the critics advised us to steer clear, it was Tom Shone in the Sunday Times that gave Drive Away Dolls four stars. I thought it landed somewhere in the middle. Any Ethan Coen movie was going to get me there, despite his brother doing other things. Instead this film is co-written with his wife Tricia Cooke. Shone said "the complete lack of gravitas gives the film a terrific sense of lift".  At the front, back and sideways was Margaret Qualley, ramped up to eleven from her performance as Pussycat, one of Charles Manson's gang in Quentin Tarantino's brilliant Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. She's just right for the trademark Coen dialogue. Sharp, fast, modern and sometimes crude. She (Jamie) and her friend Mariam are lesbians but not lovers who hire a car for a road trip from Tallahassee to Florida. Little do they know that what is the boot (trunk) will lead them into all sorts of trouble. There is an exceptional supporting role from Beanie Feldstein (Lady Bird and Booksmart) as a cop. 

So far, so promising. Except the first half of this short (93 minute) film is predictable and unexceptional. Thank goodness the second made up for it. Tom Shone said it was a "zippy piece of trash cinema, so unencumbered with ambition or pretension". Maybe that's right.  I just liked it was a piece of original writing, there is so little in mainstream movies these days. There is a story and lots of dialogue. Good performances from all the cast and it didn't outstay it's welcome. The review in Sight and Sound magazine said "The film adopts a self-consciously trash aesthetic".  

I was amazed to find later that the producers were Working Title. I'm not sure what Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner  were doing with a film like this. Maybe they thought they ought to get out of their comfort zone. But they had supported the Coen Brothers on many films; Fargo, Oh Brother Where Art Though, A Serious Man, Burn Before Reading, and Hail Caesar.  These were the same producers for Mr Bean, Johnny English, Nanny McPhee and all the Richard Curtis movies. Now into lesbian culture. What next.

A family drama, turned on it's head in the final act, stars Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain as next door neighbours in a perfect neighbourhood of the early sixties. The two actresses really go for it, if not in a subtle way. I guess we are not to take the film too seriously, but somehow you get drawn into the drama of it all. Not a black comedy exactly, but the bonkers part comes at the end. A tragedy starts things off, and that is the start of the unravelling of what was harmonious neighbourliness. I didn't agree about the Hitchcock influences in some of the reviews, he never gave us this sort of ending. 

I wonder why they gave it to first time director Benoit Delhomme? Maybe because as a cinematographer he was perfect for those elements which stood out. The setting, the fancy house exteriors, the posh interiors, the wonderful decor, the gardens, the costumes (some dresses take your breath away), the make up and the bright colours. All too perfect for the time. Both sets of parents (and the children) are immaculately dressed and their cars so swish. These are wealthy people who would always find it difficult to cope if anything went wrong. And of course it does.

I found the second half actually quite scary, as the tension mounts, probably all down to the actresses as we wonder who is bad and who is not. The final act only works as we have to remind ourselves this is the sixties when forensic science was in it's infancy. But it's the chemistry between the two stars that we have gone to see, and they do take our breath away. The critics have given the movie a mixed reception. Barry Levitt in Empire Magazine gave it four stars . "Sophisticated, adult thrillers are few and far between". Exactly right.