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Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Sweetheart (2021) in Movies
Sep 20, 2021
Great ensemble cast (1 more)
Sensitive and moving writing by Marley Morrison
A Gregory's Girl for the 21st Century
When I was in my late teen's, Bill Forsyth's "Gregory's Girl" perfectly epitomised the angst of the school years' emotions I'd left behind me. And I was very much heterosexual. With "Sweetheart", Marley Morrison in an astonishing feature debut delivers a "Gregory's Girl" for today's much more sexually fluid times.
Positives:
- What a great ensemble cast! It's all headed up by Nell Barlow, amazingly in her feature debut. Nell manages to perfectly deliver the hair-pullingly frustrating unpredictability of a teenage girl: always planning to go off doing something worthy like "knitting jumpers for elephants in Indonesia". But she manages to keep the portrayal just the right side of parody, not straying into 'Kevin and Perry' territory. "What's wrong with you?" asks her mother. "I'm 17. Everything's wrong with me" she replies. It's an immaculate performance for someone so young.
- Jo Hartley is also fabulous as A. J.'s mum, a lost soul struggling with her own worries, without having those of AJ to add to them. It's not portrayed as a typical 'Mum v Teen' battle, but beautifully nuanced. "Just because you're a lesbian now, it doesn't mean you have to dress like a boy" she pleads with A. J.
- If you're trying to place her, Ella Rae-Smith was the striking girl in the baseball cap in Netflix's "The Stranger". She is also wonderful here, as the 'hot girl' who you think has it all but is underneath deeply troubled and conflicted. A sex scene (beautifully lit and filmed by Emily Almond Barr and Matthew Wicks) manages to show absolutely nothing but is deliciously erotic as a result.
- The writing by Marley Morrison feels very autobiographical. And, as I found through reading this Guardian article about Morrison's gender-journey, there is a lot of personal experience in here. It's clever that the film is claustrophobically set in the remote holiday park (actually the real Freshwater Beach Holiday Park near Bridport on the Dorset coast). If it had been set in a big city like London, AJ could have constantly fled from her feelings, never resolving them. Here, she is constantly running into Isla.... there is no escape.
- I also very much liked the relationship written between A. J. and Steve. Steve is almost the safety valve on the pressure cooker, always helpfully allowing some steam to escape. It adds warmth to the story.
- For such an indie picture, there's a range of great tunes on the soundtrack: mostly from bands I have never heard of (probably making it affordable). I'm not sure if there's to be a soundtrack album released, but it's worth a listen if so.
Negatives:
- I wasn't fond of the sound mix on the film. Some of the dialogue was indistinct.
- A. J. gives us an occasional running commentary of her thoughts as a voiceover. Regular readers of my blog will know my thoughts on this subject! I'm not sure if it added much to the story: a 'show-not-tell' approach would have been my preference.
Summary Thoughts on "Sweetheart": I likened this film to 1980's "Gregory's Girl", and that's a great compliment. That movie made stars out of John Gordon Sinclair and Clare Grogan. I'd predict similar great things for Nell Barlow, Ella Rae-Smith and particularly for writer/director Marley Morrison. I'll very much look forward to Marley's future projects.
It's a cracking little British film. It deserves a major cinema release, but I suspect this is one that you might need to hunt out at your less mainstream cinemas. But please do so - it's well worth it. Very much recommended.
(For the full graphical review and video, check out #onemannsmovies on the web, Facebook and Tiktok. Thanks.)
Positives:
- What a great ensemble cast! It's all headed up by Nell Barlow, amazingly in her feature debut. Nell manages to perfectly deliver the hair-pullingly frustrating unpredictability of a teenage girl: always planning to go off doing something worthy like "knitting jumpers for elephants in Indonesia". But she manages to keep the portrayal just the right side of parody, not straying into 'Kevin and Perry' territory. "What's wrong with you?" asks her mother. "I'm 17. Everything's wrong with me" she replies. It's an immaculate performance for someone so young.
- Jo Hartley is also fabulous as A. J.'s mum, a lost soul struggling with her own worries, without having those of AJ to add to them. It's not portrayed as a typical 'Mum v Teen' battle, but beautifully nuanced. "Just because you're a lesbian now, it doesn't mean you have to dress like a boy" she pleads with A. J.
- If you're trying to place her, Ella Rae-Smith was the striking girl in the baseball cap in Netflix's "The Stranger". She is also wonderful here, as the 'hot girl' who you think has it all but is underneath deeply troubled and conflicted. A sex scene (beautifully lit and filmed by Emily Almond Barr and Matthew Wicks) manages to show absolutely nothing but is deliciously erotic as a result.
- The writing by Marley Morrison feels very autobiographical. And, as I found through reading this Guardian article about Morrison's gender-journey, there is a lot of personal experience in here. It's clever that the film is claustrophobically set in the remote holiday park (actually the real Freshwater Beach Holiday Park near Bridport on the Dorset coast). If it had been set in a big city like London, AJ could have constantly fled from her feelings, never resolving them. Here, she is constantly running into Isla.... there is no escape.
- I also very much liked the relationship written between A. J. and Steve. Steve is almost the safety valve on the pressure cooker, always helpfully allowing some steam to escape. It adds warmth to the story.
- For such an indie picture, there's a range of great tunes on the soundtrack: mostly from bands I have never heard of (probably making it affordable). I'm not sure if there's to be a soundtrack album released, but it's worth a listen if so.
Negatives:
- I wasn't fond of the sound mix on the film. Some of the dialogue was indistinct.
- A. J. gives us an occasional running commentary of her thoughts as a voiceover. Regular readers of my blog will know my thoughts on this subject! I'm not sure if it added much to the story: a 'show-not-tell' approach would have been my preference.
Summary Thoughts on "Sweetheart": I likened this film to 1980's "Gregory's Girl", and that's a great compliment. That movie made stars out of John Gordon Sinclair and Clare Grogan. I'd predict similar great things for Nell Barlow, Ella Rae-Smith and particularly for writer/director Marley Morrison. I'll very much look forward to Marley's future projects.
It's a cracking little British film. It deserves a major cinema release, but I suspect this is one that you might need to hunt out at your less mainstream cinemas. But please do so - it's well worth it. Very much recommended.
(For the full graphical review and video, check out #onemannsmovies on the web, Facebook and Tiktok. Thanks.)
BankofMarquis (1832 KP) rated FIRESTARTER (2022) in Movies
May 21, 2022
Commits the Biggest Film Crime - It's Boring
Sometimes, I watch a movie, so you don’t have to.
I watched the remake of the Stephen King novel FIRESTARTER, so you don’t have to.
The current “leader in the clubhouse” for the worst film of 2022, FIRESTARTER is based on the very good Stephen King novel that was published in 1980 and was made into a pretty cheesy, pretty ‘80s flick in 1984 that made Drew Barrymore (fresh off her work in ET) a bonafide movie star.
No such luck in this one.
Produced by Blum House, Directed by Keith Thomas (THE VIGIL) and adapted from King’s novel by Scott Teems (HALLOWEEN KILLS), this version of FIRESTARTER was dead on arrival, with a weak script, mediocre directing and less than stellar visual effects, consequently making a film that is the worst sort of film…boring. It doesn’t even have the ambition to be “so bad, it’s good”, it is just plodding and mediocre throughout.
But, at 1 hour 34 minutes, it is mercifully short, so it does have that going for it.
What it also has going for it is a “game” Zach Efron as “Firestarter’s Father” and he elevates the scenes he is in to something that comes close to watchable. And when Sydney Lemmon is along as “Firestarter’s Mom” the screen comes the closest to interesting. But the rest…”meh”.
Ryan Kiera Armstrong plays “Firestarter”, Charlie McGee - the young lady who can start fires with her telepathic powers - and she is “just fine”, but she does not have the star power or “it” factor that Barrymore brought to the proceedings previously. She is just not a compelling enough presence on screen to save this turkey. I don’t blame her, I blame the weak Direction by Thomas and the limp script by Teems.
The only other character/performance that sparks some interest in this film is Michael Grayeyes (TOGO) who plays a Native American tracker with his own telekinetic powers who is put on the trail of Charlie by the mysterious Institute (a shadowy Gov’t agency that chases after various “special” people - mostly kids - in quite a few Stephen King novels). Inexplicably, this role was played by an aging, pony-tailed George C. Scott (obviously chasing a paycheck) in the 1984 film. Grayeyes succeeds more.
But these glimmers of competence only aggravates more when the film bogs back down in cardboard villains (what has happened to your career, Gloria Ruben) and exposition spouting scientists (what a waste of Kurtwood Smith) and less than spectacular action sequences that, mostly, consist of Armstrong screaming while a wind machine blows her hair back while sub-par CGI flames engulf the screen.
And…adding insult to injury…the "guy in the asbestos suit” (a mainstay of any film involving fire) does not even get a day of stunt pay! It’s like going to see a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible film and Cruise doesn’t do some sort of crazy stunt!
After the success of IT, PART ONE in 2017, there was a renaissance, of sorts, of adaptations of Stephen King works and even though PET SEMATARY (2019) was pretty decent and IT, CHAPTER TWO and DOCTOR SLEEP (2019) were okay, THE DARK TOWER, the TV remake of THE STAND, LISEY’S STORY and now FIRESTARTER were all terrible, so maybe we’ve seen the end of this phase of King adaptations (I doubt it, but one can hope).
Save yourself and hour and a half of your life and skip this Firestarter. Instead, revisit the 1984 version - it plays like an Oscar-winner compared to this turkey. Or, better yet, read the original Stephen King work - it is the best of all of these.
Letter Grade: C- (and I’m being generous)
3 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis).
I watched the remake of the Stephen King novel FIRESTARTER, so you don’t have to.
The current “leader in the clubhouse” for the worst film of 2022, FIRESTARTER is based on the very good Stephen King novel that was published in 1980 and was made into a pretty cheesy, pretty ‘80s flick in 1984 that made Drew Barrymore (fresh off her work in ET) a bonafide movie star.
No such luck in this one.
Produced by Blum House, Directed by Keith Thomas (THE VIGIL) and adapted from King’s novel by Scott Teems (HALLOWEEN KILLS), this version of FIRESTARTER was dead on arrival, with a weak script, mediocre directing and less than stellar visual effects, consequently making a film that is the worst sort of film…boring. It doesn’t even have the ambition to be “so bad, it’s good”, it is just plodding and mediocre throughout.
But, at 1 hour 34 minutes, it is mercifully short, so it does have that going for it.
What it also has going for it is a “game” Zach Efron as “Firestarter’s Father” and he elevates the scenes he is in to something that comes close to watchable. And when Sydney Lemmon is along as “Firestarter’s Mom” the screen comes the closest to interesting. But the rest…”meh”.
Ryan Kiera Armstrong plays “Firestarter”, Charlie McGee - the young lady who can start fires with her telepathic powers - and she is “just fine”, but she does not have the star power or “it” factor that Barrymore brought to the proceedings previously. She is just not a compelling enough presence on screen to save this turkey. I don’t blame her, I blame the weak Direction by Thomas and the limp script by Teems.
The only other character/performance that sparks some interest in this film is Michael Grayeyes (TOGO) who plays a Native American tracker with his own telekinetic powers who is put on the trail of Charlie by the mysterious Institute (a shadowy Gov’t agency that chases after various “special” people - mostly kids - in quite a few Stephen King novels). Inexplicably, this role was played by an aging, pony-tailed George C. Scott (obviously chasing a paycheck) in the 1984 film. Grayeyes succeeds more.
But these glimmers of competence only aggravates more when the film bogs back down in cardboard villains (what has happened to your career, Gloria Ruben) and exposition spouting scientists (what a waste of Kurtwood Smith) and less than spectacular action sequences that, mostly, consist of Armstrong screaming while a wind machine blows her hair back while sub-par CGI flames engulf the screen.
And…adding insult to injury…the "guy in the asbestos suit” (a mainstay of any film involving fire) does not even get a day of stunt pay! It’s like going to see a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible film and Cruise doesn’t do some sort of crazy stunt!
After the success of IT, PART ONE in 2017, there was a renaissance, of sorts, of adaptations of Stephen King works and even though PET SEMATARY (2019) was pretty decent and IT, CHAPTER TWO and DOCTOR SLEEP (2019) were okay, THE DARK TOWER, the TV remake of THE STAND, LISEY’S STORY and now FIRESTARTER were all terrible, so maybe we’ve seen the end of this phase of King adaptations (I doubt it, but one can hope).
Save yourself and hour and a half of your life and skip this Firestarter. Instead, revisit the 1984 version - it plays like an Oscar-winner compared to this turkey. Or, better yet, read the original Stephen King work - it is the best of all of these.
Letter Grade: C- (and I’m being generous)
3 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis).