Promising Young Woman (2020)

I wanted to write this entry immediately after watching "Promising Young Woman", about a week ago, but unfortunately I didn't have enough time. Not that I have now... But probably if I postpone more I'll forget everything I had in mind. There's not much left anyway...

First of all, I avoided for a while to add the movie in my "to watch list" for two reasons: 1) I don't like Carey Mulligan (and I still believe that her act in "Drive" was a big minus for that movie, although after watching the current one my opinion on her acting skills changed dramatically) and 2) I'm fed up with movies carrying a tag related to some social issue, social movement, whatever, no matter what that might be, and I'm literally struggling lately to avoid productions that don't miss the chance to touch such issues. I'ts hard in such cases to make an objective comment that doesn't get twisted by the context. I said it before - when I watch a movie I want something to get me out of the "current real life", or if not, at least to get my attention for its cinematic value. For everything else there are news, documentaries, and other stuff. Fortunately, despite it's labeling in many reviews with a feminist bias - on which I won't comment, "Promising Young Woman" really has a cinematic value. And that's the main reason to watch it for.

The subject is a "revenge story". And as any "revenge story", since Monte Cristo or even older, it's catchy. Casey is a lonely young woman spending her days at a coffee counter, after dropping out of college years before and giving up to a medical carrer. The reason - an incident where the victim was a good friend, on which incident we don't get precise details in the movie (and that's a nuance we'll get back to). However, you can easily assume a rape during a party that went out of control. The result - the perpetrators getting away with it and the girl committing suicide. The trauma however moves forward, and we get to the present day, when the main nocturnal activity of Casey is playing a role of a vulnerable drunk bait, visiting the city's night clubs, up to the moment when somebody trying to take advantage out of her gets to far and is hit by the shock of dealing with a very lucid woman. Again, we don't get an explicit ending to some scenes like that (the same fine nuance), but you can easily assume that the revenge is soft, keeping it at the level of making the potential aggressors to consider carefully any future attempt like that. The context of the action becomes more complicated when Casey meets a former colleague. The way it complicates, you'll see in the movie...

As I said, I probably forgot most of what I wanted to write when this was fresh in my head. To finish the idea started above, the script is excellent as well as the directing - the fine nuance I mentioned is that throughout the whole movie you might get an uneasy feeling that some Tarantinoesque violence will burst out, but this doesn't happen. There is one exception, for which the contrast makes is very hard to watch (and probably that's the whole point), but despite you might expect, all the rest you'll see is a revenge story that's completely non-violent from start to finish, which stands out in the genre and actually makes it memorable. Carey Mulligan is perfect in her character, or better said she's way different from other bland acts I've seen her in - as I mentioned in the beginning, this completely changed my view on her acting skills. Technically, the movie scores on two accounts - editing, it's been a while since I watched something this good (true, there wasn't much to watch lately) and on soundtrack - I don't refer only to the score, but mostly to the songs/covers selection and the way these are used. There are movies (many by Tarantino, "Drive", "Baby Driver", "Atomic Blonde", "A Simple Favor", and other) where this parts counts at least as 10% of the final feeling. "Promising Young Woman" fits perfectly in the same list.

I'll end up with a spoiler (sort of). The ending here is probably comparable shock-wise with the one in "Uncut Gems" (the difference here being that it gives you a bit of time to digest it - because the story is not over). Unfortunately, as in "Uncut Gems", it's quite bitter - much more bitter actually. In some sense it turns the whole thing into an anti-revenge movie, because in the end you can see it like that. On the other hand an outcome of "let it go" would have cancelled the subject, and something more like "John Wick" style would have been totally unrealistic. I remember though that last year I wrote about "A Good Woman Is Hard to Find", so it's possible to have something in between, but I guess the actual intention is explicitly for an ending bitter enough to not forget it. And a criteria for a good movie, is that you'll remember it :) ...

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

"Raya and the Last Dragon" is a Disney movie, like most of the late Disney movies, and that says all about it = don't expect something to challenge your IQ here. Yup, I didn't forget we're talking about an animation where the main target is below 15 years old, but somehow I was expecting more. At least it runs decently: short and not boring.

The subject is a story set somewhere in a imaginary land on the Asian continent, divided in 5 regions, and brought to a dystopian state by a sort of demon resembling a purple tornado turning into stone every living creature it touches. 500 years ago the demon was banished by a dragon who produced a magic globe to keep the evil away. All nice and well, but unfortunately one piece magic globe doesn't divide equally to 5, and the rulers of 4 of the 5 regions grew envious of the one possessing the artifact, where the water seemed more clear, the grass greener, and so on. Like that, predictable enough, we reach a moment when the globe shatters exactly in 5 pieces (what a coincidence), the purple tornado rises again, and the grass loses it's green shade almost everywhere. Fast-forward a couple years, when we find each piece of the globe in possession of each region ruler, struggling to keep away the demon, just as much to not turn all the inhabitants into a giant terracotta army. Except Raya, the daughter of the former owner of the globe, who's trying what her father failed to do - to unite everybody. But for that she also needs to awake the dragon...

I've already told pretty much everything that takes place during the first 15 minutes, so let's stop the spoilers here. As I was saying, the advantage of the movie is its relatively alert action, moving you across the whole fantasy world in search of the globe pieces. So, the movie is not that bad, but unfortunately is utterly predictible and filled with cliche sequences. Probably it's ok for the age it targets, all the story being nothing more than a easy to understand allegory. At the end of 2016 I wrote an entry about "Kubo and the Two Strings". Also an animation, also a fairytale, also set in Asia, also a quest on gathering more pieces, also an allegory. One with much more depth than what we have here. But well, it wasn't also Disney...

Rating: 3 out of 5 (being generous)

A Passage to India (1984)

I'm not done with the '80s, and since I still don't have anything new that seems better, I'm back to that period. Or, you could also say that "karma strikes back" after my last entry against the new eligibility criteria for best picture Oscar. Because one of the nominations of more than 35 years ago, "A Passage to India", actually passes all the new requirements, and I can't deny it's the best movie I've seen this year by now. Not that it would change in any way my previous opinion, on the contrary... If something deserves to get there, this is proof that it can do it without adding restrictions.

The last movie of David Lean is based on a book that tracks two British women's visit in the colonial India, a mother of a local judge together with her future daughter-in-law. The first part of the movie doesn't tell you much of where it's heading. Besides the discrimination shown by the white minority in charge towards the local people, plus the boiling conflict that stems of this, which seem to play a role in the movie's resolution, the rest looks like a background soft romance from a Woody Allen movie, but bland and humourless. At some point, Aziz, a local physician, admirer of the British civilization, gets into the story, and following a series of events he finds himself in the position of a local guide for two women. Embarassed by his own house, to avoid their visit, he proposes a trip he's paying for himself, to some caves, one of the touristic objectives in the area, asking also a teacher, pretty much the only Englishman that doesn't seem to dislike Indians, to join them. Well, if the movie doesn't do much to keep you watching up to this part, from here on it starts to deliver... What? I won't spoil it.

In its first half, "A Passage to India" seems to be part of the same age as "Lawrence of Arabia" - if there's something that might annoy you is the feeling that the production year is sometime in the '60s, not in the '80s. There are plenty of typical elements, from a cinematography rich in close-ups, with long transitions to the actors who tend to overact from time to time, and the initially slow development, which gets close to become boring at some point. Probably there's nothing intentional about it, after all that's David Lean's movie school, but it somehow makes what's following in the second part to look a bit surreal. In this '60s movie setting, which is typically quite pragmatic and clear, we're getting some discrete parts of reflection over life of so much depth that it somehow either can surprise the viewer if he manages to decrypt these, or it might leave you in a dense confusion. In any case, Nolan can take lessons about "hidden meanings" from here. I'm not saying more than that it mixes very nicely the ideas of karma, life and the Hindi conception on reincarcation, all over a background of racial conflict, where it gives equal credit for what "too far" would mean for both sides. Just to conclude in perfect balance, good as a lesson also for the current times, maybe even more than for 1984.

Rating: 4 out of 5