Riz Ahmed stars in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
In theaters on April 10 is ‘Hamlet’, a fresh update of William Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, which features Riz Ahmed (‘Sound of Metal’), who plays a version of the troubled Dane, here the heir to an elite South Asian empire in modern-day London.
(L to R) Morfydd Clark and Riz Ahmed in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
If you’re going to tackle a Shakespeare play on film –– particularly the complex web of family tragedy that is ‘Hamlet’ — be prepared for challenges. But with this present-day version, director Aneil Karia and writer Michael Lesslie bring a fierce energy to their effort.
Script and Direction
(L to R) Riz Ahmed and Timothy Spall in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
Shakespeare is not easy to adapt, and Lesslie here sticks to the traditional language for the most part (while still needing to cut plenty to avoid an overlong running time). But the changes and substitutions (London for Denmark and the use of Indian culture) truly work well.
Karia, meanwhile brings real panache and style, making the world feel relevant and also, in places, timely.
Cast and Performances
(Far Left) Riz Ahmed stars in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
It’s really Ahmed’s show, and he chews on one of the trickiest parts in drama. Sequences such as the “To be or not to be” soliloquy give him something to truly work with.
Which isn’t to dismiss an impressive supporting cast, especially Art Malik as scheming uncle Claudius and Morfydd Clark, who brings humanity to the relatively smaller role of Ophelia.
Final Thoughts
(L to R) Art Malik and Joe Alwyn in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
Even if you’ve dismissed Shakespeare as impenetrable, the new ‘Hamlet’ shows what can happen in sure hands, the emotion on full display. Purists may balk at the changes, but this is a worthwhile adaptation.
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‘Lorne’ director Morgan Neville.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with director Morgan Neville about his work on ‘Lorne’, the style of the documentary, making it funny, his unprecedented access to ‘Saturday Night Live’, the show’s darkest period, conducting the interviews, what he learned about Lorne from making the movie, and the future of the long running show.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interview.
Moviefone: To begin with, the film plays almost like an ‘SNL’ parody of a celebrity biopic with animated sequences and Chris Parnell’s narration. Was that what you set out to do from the beginning or did you have to pivot when you realized you might not get what you need from Lorne Michaels himself?
Morgan Neville: I think my intent in the beginning was, I want this to be funny. I didn’t know how exactly. But beyond that, I don’t entirely have a plan about what the film is going to be. I know it had all these great ingredients. I know Lorne’s story is interesting. He’s a fascinating character who rarely does interviews or shows people into his life. I know the show is fascinating. I knew there were lots of interesting things, but I didn’t know how it would fit together. When we started shooting, what you see in the beginning of the film is my first day of shooting, where the cameras come out, and then Lorne vanishes. I felt like one of the themes of the film is basically the theme of me making the film. You go from somebody who really doesn’t seem like he wants a film made about him to somebody who has made his peace with it and is willing to give us a glimpse inside. That was my experience of making the film. So, the idea of bringing Chris Parnell in is a way of channeling ‘SNL’, but also the ‘TV Funhouse’. I mean, it’s also something that I’ve done with a lot of my films. I want the subject of the film to help me decide how to tell the story, so it feels like the telling of it is related to the subject. So, I just kept thinking, well, what is the ‘SNL’ version of a documentary about Lorne? Not to say that because it’s funny that there’s no substance there. Because one thing I’m also proud of is how the emotion sneaks into the film quietly, in a way you’re not expecting. Lorne, in the beginning, is like, “Why is this guy even here? Why is he torturing this poor crew?” But then you understand a lot more about what makes him tick and he opens in that way.
MF: The movie is very funny. Can you set out to make a funny documentary, or is that a result of the subject you are focusing on?
MN: I think humor is one of the great under discussed things in documentary film. I think some of my favorite documentaries are funny in different ways. That could be anything from the films that inspired me to make documentaries, like ‘Sherman’s March’, ‘Roger & Me’, and ‘The Atomic Cafe’. I mean, all the documentaries that got me excited, that are funny in different ways. Even in films I’ve made, like, ‘Best of Enemies’ or ‘Won’t you be my Neighbor?’ There are some big laughs in those films, too. But I think humor is such a great way of letting the audience exhale and open themselves up in a way if they’re laughing. They’re way more receptive to what you might want to share with them. So, I love that, and why can’t documentaries be comedies sometimes? So, this was me intentionally in the beginning saying, “I do want this to be a funny film.” Because it’s a film, most people who are going to watch it are comedy fans. I’ve seen a lot of documentaries about comedy that are really depressing. There are a lot of dark stories in comedy. But I always wanted to remember the comedy part of it, too. ‘Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces’ was the first comedy documentary I did that was purely comedy, and this is the second. With both, I tried to balance the funny with some weight or gravitas at the same time.
MF: Can you talk about the unprecedented access that you had to Lorne and ‘Saturday Night Live’ and what did you learn about him as a person from your access?
MN: I think people think of Lorne as sitting on a throne, deciding who makes it in comedy and who doesn’t make it, and that he is just sitting there, flipping his finger, and deciding the fate of people. I think Lorne sees himself as beleaguered, in the trenches, and worrying about next week’s show and making 100 phone calls to sponsors, network people, affiliates, agents, studios, and cast members to just keep all the plates in the air. So, it’s funny that everybody thinks Lorne is just sitting pretty. I think Lorne feels like he’s just barely making it, because I asked everybody in the film, “At what point do you think Saturday Night Live became a show that was not going to disappear?” Some people said, “Well, when the show reinvented itself after 1995 with Will Ferrell and that amazing cast, or maybe after 9/11, when it became a place where people came together and mourned and laughed together for the first time.” I asked Lorne that question, and he said, “Maybe this year.” You know, fifty years in! So, I think Lorne’s the last person to pat himself on the back and feel like, job well done, we don’t have to worry anymore. I think Lorne is thinking about, “When this cast gels, where’s it going to be in two years?” He’s thinking about things like that. “Oh, this writer I have who might want to leave, maybe I can get him to work on a TV show, and I can get him a development deal.” He’s constantly pulling levers to keep everything kind of bubbling along and that’s something, People don’t see him sweat, but I think he feels like he’s in the thick of it. I think it’s maybe part of why he made the film, is for people to understand that producing is a real job. It’s not just sitting back and collecting checks. It’s a lot of invisible things that people just don’t understand.
MF: You mention in the film that the closest Lorne came to losing control of the show was in the mid- ‘90s, which culminated in the firing of Norm MacDonald. In discussing it with Lorne, did he express any regret in how that went down and being unable to protect Norm in the same way he has protected so many ‘SNL’ performers before and after?
MN: I don’t think so. I love Norm’s comedy. But, let’s face it, Norm was asking for it and in the funniest way possible. Norm was warned again and again and again. So, I think Norm enjoyed poking the bear, and I don’t think Norm felt like Lorne was to blame for any of that. I think the other person in that equation was Jim Downey, the legendary writer who started in season two, and was on and off the show for decades, who I interviewed in the documentary. Jim, at that time, was running ‘Weekend Update’ with Norm, and the two of them were thick as thieves, and they were the ones who were enjoying poking the bear. When Norm got fired, Jim got fired too, but Lorne quietly got Jim back the next year. I think Lorne both felt a loyalty to Jim, and really wanted to protect Jim. Norm was going to be fine. Lorne told the bosses, “Okay, I’ll let them go,” and then quietly rehired Jim, and helped Norm land his next thing. Again, it’s something that made Lorne incredibly unhappy to have to go through, but he is the king of the long game. You may lose the battles, but he always wins the war.
John Mulaney in ‘John Mulaney: Baby J’ Photo: Netflix.
MF: Of all the interviews you conducted, who had the most insight into Lorne and was there anyone you wanted to interview but were unable to?
MN: I mean, the only person I really wanted to interview who said no was Dan Aykroyd, and he had said he was just talked out from doing documentary interviews, which is fine. I get it. But at the same time, for a film like this, you could interview so many people, and I interviewed even more than I normally like to. I normally don’t like to interview a ton of people for a film because I want there to be a smaller chorus of voices. But even here, I could have interviewed another fifty people for this film easily. So, I wanted people from different chapters of his life, people like Howard Shore, who he met at camp as a 14-year-old to Rosie Shuster, his first wife he met in high school who became one of the original writers on ‘Saturday Night Live’. But one of my favorites was John Mulaney because he is both, such a great talker, but also a real student of Lorne’s. They’re friends, but I think John has studied Lorne, and I think when they’re together, John constantly peppers Lorne with questions, and he’s collecting as much information about Lorne as he can. So, I think he was ready to talk. I think he loved talking about Lorne. I think we did, like, a two-hour interview, and I said, “Well, I think that’s good,” and he was like, “Well, let’s keep going.” So we went for another hour, and then when we did the round table, he said, “Oh, I want to do that.” So, I got him together with Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, and Fred Armisen. But I think Mulaney was probably the MVP of talking about Lorne.
MF: Finally, I get the sense from the film that Lorne Michaels is ‘Saturday Night Live’ and ‘Saturday Night Live’ is Lorne Michaels, and that there is no retiring for him. He’ll leave the show when he must and it may go on for a while, but that will be the end of the show as we currently know it. What is your sense of the future of the series and how long do you think it will go on without Lorne Michaels at the helm?
MN: I think Lorne is not going to run the show for another fifty years, but he wants it to continue, and I think it will continue, just because, for no other reason, the IP of ‘SNL’ is very valuable, and people still watch and will continue to watch. It’s one of the last places where we come together to watch things. You know, it’s like sports and ‘Saturday Night Live’. There aren’t a lot of places where we all come together to watch things. So, I think there are a lot of reasons why it will continue. I just don’t think it’ll be the same, because, in part, Lorne’s not doing it, but also because I can’t imagine it continuing to be as wasteful as it is. I mean, Lorne says that in the film. It’s made wastefully, but that’s because by being wasteful, you get to discover more things. He’s producing way more than he needs for a week. So, if you’re able to throw out a third of all your work every week and just pick the best two thirds, it makes it better. But it’s also kind of crazy to know you’re going to throw out a third of all your work every week. I also don’t think there’s one person to fill Lorne’s shoes, which are impossible to fill. But I think the thing about Lorne is he’s managing two different ways. He’s managing down, which is him with the writers and the cast, and all of that, which he’s great at. You hear all those stories of how he works with cast members. But the other part of his job is he’s managing up. So, dealing with the network people, and the sponsors, and affiliates, and studios, and all of that, in a way that is invisible, and is a very different skill than dealing with writers. So, you know, part of me feels like it would take at least two people to do his job.
‘Lorne’ is an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes glimpse at the man who built the inimitable empire of comedy, shaping television and culture for generations. The documentary features exclusive footage, archival treasures, and candid interviews with the show’s most iconic cast members and writers.
Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville accomplishes the near impossible by capturing the illusive Lorne Michaels in the new film ‘Lorne’. The documentary, which is very funny, is almost an ‘SNL’ parody of celebrity biopics with pitch perfect narration from alum Chris Parnell and TV Funhouse style animation.
Neville was given unprecedented behind the scenes access to Michaels and ‘Saturday Night Live’ and lifts the curtain to show how the sausage is really made. With interviews from ‘SNL’ alum like Tina Fey, John Mulaney, Kristen Wiig and Mike Myers, the movie explores Michaels’ career, the history of the show, and how ‘SNL’ is really made.
Story and Direction
‘Saturday Night Live’s Studio 8H. Photo: NBC.
Director Morgan Neville is no stranger to documenting famous people, as his last film, ‘Man on the Run’ was centered on Paul McCartney. But the opening scene of ‘Lorne’ makes one think that Neville has finally met his match in Lorne Michaels. The ‘SNL’ creator seems surprised and annoyed that he even agreed to having a documentary crew follow him around, and virtually disappears once the movie begins.
This forces Neville to pivot quickly and results in a movie that is closer to an ‘SNL’ parody of a documentary, which makes for a very funny movie. Some of the techniques that Neville uses to offset the loss of his subject include focusing on interviews with ‘SNL’ cast and alum instead and incorporating cartoons and narration. Those choices, whether out of desperation or not, transform the film from a standard celebrity documentary to a truly funny and entertaining experience on its own terms.
But despite his best efforts, the film eventually does breakdown Michaels’ defenses and gives an honest and in-depth look behind the curtain at the man that created a comedic industry. In fact, Neville’s access to ‘Saturday Night Live’ was astounding and gives a rare never-before-seen look at exactly how the show is really made with glimpses into the writer’s room, pitch meetings, guest meetings, rehearsals, and finally choosing the sketches for that episode.
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In addition to chronicling how the show is made week to week, the film also goes through Michaels’ personal history, the beginnings of his career, how he created the show, ‘SNL’s ups and downs including his exit in 1980, his return in 1985, almost losing the show in the 90s, and the various cast changes, as well as his film career, which includes writing ‘Three Amigos’ and producing ‘Wayne’s World’.
Morgan Neville is the best documentarian working today and has made some of the finest documentaries in recent years including the Oscar winning ‘20 Feet from Stardom’, ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’, and ‘Man on the Run’. But ‘Lorne’ might be his best work yet, cracking the code on one of the most important figures in entertainment history.
Celebrity Interviews
John Mulaney and Tina Fey at Netflix’s Next on Netflix event. Photo: Netflix.
While reluctant at first, Lorne Michaels does eventually sit down for several interviews and is surprisingly open, despite his reputation for being guarded. However, his insight into his past and the inner workings of the show are delivered cryptically and in a very Lorne Michaels way. But we do get a rare look at his lakeside hideaway retreat in an undisclosed area of Maine, as well as his rigorous late-night schedule.
You really come to understand that Michaels is a creature of habit, basically living the same schedule for fifty years, even eating at the same handful of New York restaurants and ordering the same meals for decades. People often wonder why ‘SNL’ has such a strange schedule, working late into the night and into the early morning most days. It’s because of Lorne, that’s his schedule, the show just adopted it.
John Mulaney had the most insight about Lorne, while Tina Fey acted like she didn’t really know him at all. But the most fascinating exchange was watching an intimate dinner between Michaels and friend Steve Martin.
My one critique is I do wish Neville had interviewed more of the earlier cast members, as there seemed to be a focus on only cast members from the last 25 years. Where was Chevy Chase and Bill Murray? Where was Dana Carvey and Adam Sandler? What about Will Ferrell? But this may just be a result of who was available and not by design.
‘Lorne’ is a brilliant documentary that delivers a rare look at an almost mythic figure in popular culture and gives true insight without damaging the myth. At the same time, for fans of ‘Saturday Night Live’ or comedy in general, the movie is a must see that really dissects how the series became an institution and why it is still going strong after fifty years.
‘Lorne’ receives a score of 90 out of 100.
‘Lorne’ opens in theaters on April 17th.
What is the story of ‘Lorne’?
‘Lorne’ is an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes glimpse at the man who built the inimitable empire of comedy, shaping television and culture for generations. The documentary features exclusive footage, archival treasures, and candid interviews with the show’s most iconic cast members and writers.
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Riz Ahmed stars in ‘Hamlet’.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Riz Ahmed about his work on ‘Hamlet’, taking on the iconic role, shooting the “To be or not to be” speech, and why Shakespeare’s work is so timeless and universal.
You can watch the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interview.
Riz Ahmed stars in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about the challenges of playing the iconic role of Hamlet, and is it a role that you’ve always wanted to play?
Riz Ahmed: I’ve wanted to play this since I was 17 and I was in English class feeling like this is some stuffy, boring museum artifact, and that Shakespeare is not for me. I had an amazing English teacher who put it in front of me and made me realize, “Wow, this is pretty close to how I’m feeling.” The central feeling, I would say for Hamlet is, “Is the world going crazy or have I lost my mind?” I think that’s how we’re all feeling. That’s how I was feeling then, and it’s how I’m feeling now, and dare I say, it’s how most of the world feels now. So, I wanted to play it because it was very relatable. I think that’s the challenge and the gift of taking on something like ‘Hamlet’, a role like this, is it’s been done so many times. I think the challenge is, what is specific and personal about your interpretation? That’s also a gift. It’s been done so many times, there’s no illusion that someone’s going to perform a definitive Hamlet. You’re liberated in a way to just do something as uniquely specific and personal to you and your experience as possible. So, it’s a strange combination of feeling like, “We’re going to step into these big old shoes that don’t belong to us.” While at the same time going, “Well, actually we get to run around in these shoes however we want.”
(L to R) Morfydd Clark and Riz Ahmed in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
MF: Shakespeare’s work is universal and can be adapted to any time-period or culture. What is it about his work that you think has made it stand the test of time?
RA: I think it’s a couple of things. Firstly, a lot of the stories are drawn from myths that are not British, that are ancient. The first words you hear in our Hamlet are words from the Bhagavad Gita, which is the foundational Hindu myth. That’s because that story is very similar to the story of ‘Hamlet’. It predates ‘Hamlet’ by thousands of years. This idea of choosing family loyalty or doing the right thing, that’s a timeless theme. So, I think that’s one reason why it can cross barriers of culture. It belongs to myth that belongs to all of us. The second reason is because it’s like music. The logical understanding of every word was not something that even audiences were doing in Shakespeare’s time when it comes to these plays. Shakespeare made up like 4,000 new words. They didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but it’s music. It’s rhythm, its flow, its percussion, its energy, and it’s intention. If you hear it like music, it moves you like music and music crosses all boundaries.
(Far Left) Riz Ahmed stars in ‘Hamlet’. Photo: Focus Features.
MF: Finally, I’ve never seen the ‘To be or not to be” speech depicted the way you did it, with the character in a car speeding towards oncoming traffic. Can you talk about shooting that scene and how that added urgency to the speech?
RA: Absolutely. Our interpretation of “To be or not to be” is that it’s not about, “Should I kill myself or not?” Which is how it’s usually performed, right? It’s a much more urgent, confronting question. The question is, “Should we fight back against injustice, even if it means we might die?” That’s a contemporary, radical question. Then if you look at the language itself rather than looking at the traditional way it’s performed, that’s what it’s saying. So, we had to stage it in a way and have that confrontation and that urgency. If the speech is a game of chicken, we’re going to stage it like a game of chicken. So, he is literally doing that. He’s driving down a freeway, heading towards a lorry a hundred miles an hour, asking himself, does he have the guts to take on something bigger than himself? So, we staged it that way in a way. We’re just trying to honor the DNA of this speech rather than honoring the traditional way it’s done. We really tried to make something that’s for people who feel like Shakespeare isn’t normally for them and hopefully it gives them a visceral experience.
‘Hamlet’ opens in theaters on April 10th.
What is the plot of ‘Hamlet’?
Haunted by his father’s ghost (Avijit Dutt), Prince Hamlet (Riz Ahmed) descends from elite London society into the city’s underground, moving between Hindu temples and homeless camps. In seeking to avenge his father’s murder, he begins to question his own role in his family’s corruption.
Musician Billie Eilish is to star in a new adaptation of ‘The Bell Jar.’
Sarah Polley is writing and directing the movie.
Focus Features is in talks to produce and distribute.
Having already found success in movies thanks to her Oscar-winning music for ‘No Time to Die’ and ‘Barbie’, Billie Eilish is looking to follow other singer-songwriters to the screen and making her cinematic acting debut.
The only novel written by American writer and poet Plath, ‘The Bell Jar’ was originally published in 1963.
This semi-autobiographical work charts a young woman’s descent into mental illness and the burden of societal pressures. The book paralleled Plath’s own experiences with depression; the writer tragically died by suicide just a month after the novel’s first UK publication.
Who else has tried to film the novel?
Dakota Fanning stars in Paramount Pictures’ ‘Vicious.’
Since then, it has mostly been false starts: Julia Stiles was attached to star in a version in 2007 that ultimately didn’t come to pass. And Kirsten Dunst was attached to direct Dakota Fanning in the story a decade later but that also fell by the wayside. Showtime was reportedly developing a small screen take in 2019, but that hasn’t moved forward.
In Theaters via Focus Features on December 25 is ‘Song Sung Blue’, which sounds like it should be a Neil Diamond biopic, but is in fact the adaptation of a documentary about a couple who covered his tracks while dealing with difficult moments in life.
We have had such a glut of music biopics in recent years, unleashed by the success of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ that you might roll your eyes at the idea that ‘Song Sung Blue’ delves into some aspect of crooner Neil Diamond’s life.
Instead, writer/director/producer Craig Brewer has unearthed Greg Kohs’ underappreciated 2008 documentary about a real-life couple who formed a Diamond tribute act, chronicling the highs and lows in their own family.
Brewer certainly knows how to bring music to screens, and in ‘Dolemite Is My Name,’ he took an effective, funny look at a real-life person. With ‘Song Sung Blue,’ he combines those to largely winning effect, though it is sometimes hampered by what is invented (coincidence and convenience in the service of heartstring plucking) and suffers from what’s best described as ‘Return of the King’ syndrome –– multiple moments where there could be a natural ending, but the movie keeps going.
Still, Brewer has found a fantastic story here –– one that the trailer doesn’t fully address, and this is best enjoyed without knowing too much –– and draws superb performances from the whole cast, including Jackman and particularly Hudson.
While it might seem to be Jackson’s film as Mike Sardina initially, it evolves to become much more of a two-hander, Hudson enjoying her best role in years.
Around them, the supporting cast work well without slipping too often into expected beats (tough when it’s a true story on display).
‘Song Sung Blue’ should entertain even those who don’t know their Neil Diamond from their ‘Diamond Jim’, proving to be a welcome dose of real sentiment in an awards season that has been in need of it.
Based on a true story, two down-on-their-luck musicians (Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson) form a joyous Neil Diamond tribute band, proving it’s never too late to find love and follow your dreams.
Every frame of ‘Hamnet’ is beautifully designed and captured by director Chloe Zhao (‘Eternals’) and her team, rendering England during the life and times of William Shakespeare in both ethereal and grimy terms. Life is hard, but also mysterious, and those who still connect with the forces of nature are an increasingly rare breed – like Anne ‘Agnes’ Hathaway (Jessie Buckley), who becomes the Bard’s wife and is the true center of ‘Hamnet.’
Agnes, the daughter of an alleged ‘forest witch,’ is both luminously beautiful and slightly feral, which makes her all-intoxicating for Shakespeare himself (Paul Mescal). ‘Hamnet’ chronicles that passion, their deep love, and the creation of their family in poignantly simple terms – until tragedy rips at their very core. But that tragedy also manifests itself in a way that reverberates through history, and it’s only when that happens that ‘Hamnet’ wobbles, with the film not providing enough time for that aspect of the story to breathe and take root in the same way that its first part does.
A young William Shakespeare is drawn to the magnetic Agnes (pronounced ANN-yes) in 16th century Stratford, and after a quick courtship they’re going at it hot and heavy in a stable. That leaves Agnes pregnant with the first of their three children, initiating a marriage that is frowned upon by Shakespeare’s brutish father (David Wilmot) and stern mother (Emily Watson). But William, Agnes, and their children – Susanna, and the twins Judith and Hamnet – find happiness in their existence, even if William has to travel frequently to London to write and produce his plays.
It’s only when the unimaginable (at least for us; it was much more common then) hits the clan, resulting in the death of perhaps the most precocious family member, that the clan’s entire dynamic is in danger of disintegrating – particularly as a shattered Agnes begins to bitterly resent her husband for not being there for that child’s last moments, and for throwing himself into his work instead of sharing in her grief. But William has his own method for dealing with the loss and his unspeakable anguish – and it expresses itself through the creation of one of his greatest plays (at least according to this movie, and the Maggie O’Farrell novel it was based on; the truth, as with many aspects of the real Shakespeare’s life, remains elusive).
For its first two-thirds, ‘Hamnet’ builds a magnificent edifice of love, emotion, and empathy that borders on the mystical, primarily through the force of nature that is Jessie Buckley’s Agnes. Her love for William – and his reciprocation – is the core of the movie’s first act, with their endearing family life the center of its second. It all comes crashing down during an extended, agonizing sequence in which Agnes’ feral, soul-crushing response is a heartbreaking howl of loss that could reverberate through the soul of every parent.
After reaching that height of sorrow, Zhao doesn’t completely find a way to balance the scales, or at least give the rest of the narrative the weight it deserves. Agnes’ fury toward William doesn’t seem earned – even if he becomes a distant figure during the middle of the film — and her journey during the closing sequences, both physical as she travels to London to see what the hell her husband is doing there and psychological as she sees his latest play and realizes where it’s coming from, seems rushed. Where ‘Hamnet’ should reach a powerful crescendo of forgiveness and acceptance, it never quite brings down the house, leaving one feeling like something’s missing.
Whatever the flaws in narrative structure, there are none whatsoever in Jessie Buckley’s performance. She has been cited as the favorite to take home an Oscar this year and there’s no question about it. We meet Agnes curled at the base of a tree; she returns to that tree to give birth to her first child. The woman is connected to nature in ways both beautiful and enigmatic, and Buckley captures every aspect of her – her mystical nature, her undeniable charisma, her fierce love, and her excruciating grief – just right. It’s a powerhouse piece of work, and although it’s one of several delivered by women this year, it will be hard to top.
We were somewhat soured on Paul Mescal after his miscasting in ‘Gladiator II,’ but he’s returned to our good graces here. Mescal’s Shakespeare, while not nearly as present onscreen as Agnes, is nevertheless a complex presence, a man torn between his love for his family and the work that takes him away from them, both physically and mentally. Mescal’s portrayal here is soulful and empathetic, giving us a glimpse into the beating heart of one of literature’s greatest geniuses (there’s only one scene, in which he spouts some of his most famous lines while considering the end of his own life, that doesn’t ring true).
Attention must be paid as well to Emily Watson’s Mary Shakespeare, whose relationship with Agnes evolves from dour disapproval to love and understanding, and especially Jacobi Jupe as Hamnet Shakespeare, about whom we’ll say little but who also rips one’s heart out during several key scenes.
Chloe Zhao seems most comfortable as a director in exploring the human psyche, the depths of our emotion and empathy, and the intimacy of our connection to both other people and the world around us. Perhaps that’s why her sole attempt to date at spectacle, ‘Eternals,’ didn’t quite work, while films like ‘Nomadland’ are so powerful.
She re-centers herself here with ‘Hamnet,’ finding all the elements of her best work while adding a powerful message about the ways in which we process grief and how the creation of art can channel the deepest and most intense of human emotions. Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ is not a recreation of events in the Bard’s life (which may or may not have happened as they do in this film), and neither is Chloe Zhao’s ‘Hamnet.’ But both take on a single, universal query: can art can provide empathy, understanding, and even healing? That is the question indeed.
William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and Anne ‘Agnes’ Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) marry and have three children, until the family is shattered by an unthinkable tragedy that leads to the writing of one of the Bard’s greatest plays.
In theaters on October 31st is ‘Bugonia’, which finds Jesse Plemons as Teddy, a man convinced that extraterrestrials from Andromeda have been strategically destroying the human race (and bees) and kidnaps a woman (Emma Stone’s Michelle) he believes is one of the marauding aliens.
At this point, we both know what to predict from a Yorgos Lanthimos movie –– weirdness in abundance, but with a moral core –– and also to expect the unexpected as the Greek filmmaker goes in different directions for his work.
Here, re-teaming for a fourth time with Emma Stone and a second with Jesse Plemons (who appeared in last year’s ‘Kinds of Kindness’, he’s found a suitable subject re-making 2003 Korean conspiracy thriller/dark comedy ‘Save the Green Planet!’
Written by Will Tracy, a ‘Succession’ veteran whose big screen work also includes 2022’s ‘The Menu’, ‘Bugonia’ adapts Jang Joon-hwan’s original script into something that works for both international audiences and Lanthimos’ own sensibilities.
While it occasionally lags in pace, it largely keeps the shocks and the laughs coming, and has you guessing whether Stone’s character really is from another planet or if Plemons is simply supremely delusional.
Lanthimos, working again with cinematographer Robbie Ryan, keeps things mostly grounded, letting the performances do the heavy lifting, but adding in stylish touches that help tell the story.
Stone and Plemons are the focus here, with Stone as hard-charging businesswoman who is by turns icily logical and desperately emotional depending on the situation. She really has found a great collaborator in the director, who keeps pushing her in fascinating new directions.
Plemons, meanwhile, also flourishes, feasting on the role of the twitchy, tortured, lank-haired lead, a man convinced his theories are correct even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary.
But there’s great work too from newcomer Aidan Delbis as Teddy’s cousin/sidekick Don, a young man on the autism spectrum who really wants to go along with Teddy’s plans, but has such a sweet naiveté to how he sees the word.
‘Bugonia’ has more on its mind than the basic clash of conspiracy thriller and farcical comedy you might have predicted, including meditations on the machinations of big pharma and the dire condition of the Earth’s climate.
But it’s all so wrapped in effective entertainment that it never feels like a lecture.
‘Bugonia’ receives 85 out of 100.
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What’s the story of ‘Bugonia’?
Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.
It’s been eight years since the great Daniel Day-Lewis last appeared in a motion picture – ‘Phantom Thread,’ one of my least favorite Paul Thomas Anderson films – so the news of his return was rightly regarded with lots of anticipation.
But while Day-Lewis remains a riveting, magnetic presence on screen, the film itself, ‘Anemone,’ ends up somewhat of disappointment. Co-written by the actor with his son, Ronan Day-Lewis – who also makes his feature directorial debut here – ‘Anemone’ is painstakingly slow in stretching a thin, rather well-worn plot to two hours. The younger Day-Lewis pulls off some gorgeous imagery (as befitting his work as a painter), but aside from that and the acting by his father and Sean Bean, there’s not enough here to make this a welcome return for the three-time Oscar winner.
‘Anemone’ opens with what chillingly looks like children’s drawings of the Troubles in Ireland and the conflict between the IRA and the British Army, immediately giving us an idea of the story’s backdrop. But the main narrative itself is revealed only sluggishly, as Jem Stoker (Sean Bean) leaves his partner Nessa (Samantha Morton) and her son Brian (Samuel Bottomley) on a quest to see his estranged younger brother Ray (Daniel Day-Lewis), who has exiled himself to a cabin deep in a remote forest for 20 years with virtually no contact from his family.
There’s a palpable unease between the two men at first, with the paranoid and incommunicative Ray only gradually opening up to his sibling. As the film continues, we find out – bit by bit – that Jem is deeply religious while Ray is not (with his own very good reasons, which he recounts in a long monologue as disgusting as it is bizarre), that both men were subjected to a brutal upbringing from their father, and that both also served in the military during the Troubles – with Ray in particularly wracked by memories that he can’t let go. But Jem is on a mission to bring his brother back with him in order to deal with a family situation that has reached the point of crisis.
(L to R) Ronan Day-Lewis and Daniel Day-Lewis at the premiere of ‘Anemone’. Photo: Focus Features.
In the end, that storyline is just not enough to sustain any momentum, and ‘Anemone’ begins to drag in all the wrong places, just as the critical revelations begin to fully come to light. There are lots of scenes of Ray or Ray and Jem walking through woods or along beaches, which only pad out the essential slimness of the narrative. And that narrative itself doesn’t necessarily tell us anything new that we haven’t seen in tales like this before, of absent, violent, or disengaged fathers, or of men traumatized by the institutions in which they were raised and the legacies they bequeath their sons.
Ronan Day-Lewis and cinematographer Ben Fordesman pull off a number of gorgeous, painterly compositions – while working primarily in muted greens, blues, and browns – but the director also shows his relative greenness behind the camera with some awkwardly showy moves as well. More hallucinatory sequences are mysterious seemingly just for the sake of it, while other scenes – like a massive hailstorm battering down on the characters – seem heavy-handed in their symbolism, as is the fact that the flower of the title, which Jem and Ray’s father used to grow, continues to bloom outside Ray’s cabin.
‘Anemone’ is a small movie, with just five main speaking parts, but of course Daniel Day-Lewis is the main attraction here. And he brings all of his skills to bear in what is certainly an enigmatic, shape-shifting character. Ray Stoker is at times reclusive, misanthropic, cruel, and cold, with a hint of violence churning under the surface; but Day-Lewis subtly, masterfully peels back the hard exterior to show us vulnerability, hurt, and even love. His work meets the moment in a movie that needs him to essentially give it purpose.
Two often underrated actors get a chance to shine here as well. Samantha Morton’s role as the woman at the nexus of the lives of these three men is less well-defined, unfortunately, but Morton does what she can and creates a portrait of a woman for whom a hard life has not quite destroyed her heart just yet. And we have to give it up for Sean Bean, another great British actor who often doesn’t get the credit he deserves, as Jem, the grounded, decent, pragmatic counterweight to his impulsive and tormented brother. Spoiler alert: Bean also avoids the fate that usually befalls his characters in films, which is nice to see.
Final Thoughts
(L to R) Daniel Day-Lewis, Ronan Day-Lewis and Sean Bean at the premiere of ‘Anemone’. Photo: Focus Features.
As we stated earlier, Daniel Day-Lewis is an actor one can always watch for his total submersion into whatever character he’s playing, and he’s lost none of that powerful presence in the eight years he’s been away. ‘Anemone’ is worth seeing if you are a DDL completist, while Ronan Day-Lewis certain has enough visual acumen to point toward a promising career as a filmmaker. Bobby Krlic (aka The Haxan Cloak) also contributes a haunting, guitar-driven score that adds a lot of atmosphere.
But by the time it reaches a climax that should be emotional but doesn’t quite get there, ‘Anemone’ doesn’t offer enough of a compelling reason for Daniel Day Lewis’ return, except for the fact that the film – like its subject matter – is a family affair.
‘Anemone’ receives a score of 50 out of 100.
(L to R) Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Bean at the premiere of ‘Anemone’. Photo: Focus Features.
What is the plot of ‘Anemone’?
A mysterious shared history has left brothers Ray (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Jem (Sean Bean) Stoker estranged for 20 years, with Ray living in self-imposed exile. But a family crisis forces Jem to track Ray down in his cabin deep in the woods and ask him to revisit the most troubling moments of their past.
The second chapter in a proposed lesbian B-movie trilogy dreamed up by director/writer Ethan Coen and his wife, writer/editor Tricia Cooke, ‘Honey Don’t!’ follows up the pair’s first installment, 2024’s ‘Drive-Away Dolls.’ But while that was a caper/buddy road comedy that benefited (as far as it went) from the affection between Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan, ‘Honey Don’t!’ is a takeoff on the noir genre that is saved only by another great performance from Qualley and the handful of spicy sex scenes she shares with Aubrey Plaza.
The rest of ‘Honey Don’t!’ — named after a Carl Perkins song — is even more insubstantial that ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ ended up being, with a formless script that plays like a rough draft and an overabundance of plot strands and characters that drift in and out of the picture without anything meaningful to tie them together. It’s barely a movie, making us wish that Ethan and his brother Joel would reunite.
Story and direction: two things that ‘Honey Don’t!’ is badly in need of. Qualley plays Honey O’Donahue, a tough, queer private detective who lives and works in the arid town of Bakersfield, California, where she stays close to her sister (Kristen Connolly) – who is on the edge of poverty with her six kids – and does her best to protect and help her.
Although local cop Marty (Charlie Day) – who refuses to accept that the glamorous Honey is a lesbian – insists that the car accident death of a potential client is an open-and-shut case, Honey has her suspicions. Those lead her to a local church called the Four-Way Temple and its pastor, the sleazy Drew Devlin (Chris Evans), who is smuggling drugs when not luring vulnerable young women into his bed and fetish gear. The investigation turns personal when Honey’s own family is dragged in, dredging up ghosts from her past even as she begins a torrid affair with an evidence room officer, MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza).
As with many noirs, neo or otherwise, the story is often fragmentary. But there’s nothing else beyond Qualley’s central performance to keep our interest. Most of the other cast members – except perhaps for Plaza and Day – make little to no impression, many of the jokes don’t land, and scenes meander about with little tension or vitality. The movie feels like Coen and Cooke slapped it together on the fly, and the drab, parched setting saps whatever energy the story may possess.
There’s something in here about female empowerment and the need to stop submitting to patriarchal figures, but it’s handled so limply that any thematic concerns have no weight. And the story’s dénouement is so abrupt and baffling that one is left wondering what the hell happened. One major subplot ends up going absolutely nowhere at all – an indication of just how slipshod and lazy the entire film seems.
Margaret Qualley is the sole reason to stick around in ‘Honey Don’t!’ Her Honey is tough, frank, and fun even if the rest of the movie around her is dismal, and she shines in Honey’s procession of brightly-colored flowered dresses. Her line readings are deliberately staccato and flat in the noir tradition, and there’s just enough revealed about her to be frustrating, because Honey is a terrific character looking for a better movie.
Aubrey Plaza and Qualley truly sizzle in their sex scenes, but Plaza’s Falcone is too much of a cypher and is let down by the script toward the end. Chris Evans is simply miscast: the former (and future?) Captain America is too arch here and much better served by movies like ‘Materialists.’ Charlie Day earns some chuckles as the lunkheaded but sweet-natured Marty, and Gabby Beans deserves more to do as Honey’s assistant Spider, but everyone else fades into the blazing Bakersfield sun.
There is the hint of a far more interesting movie here, and making the classic noir detective figure into a lesbian could add a fresh new spin to the genre. But ‘Honey Don’t!’ just does not work.
Like ‘Drive-Away Dolls,’ this has the quirks, violence, and casual comedy of a Coen brothers movie, but even less of whatever magical focus the combination of Joel and Ethan brings to their best films. This feels more like self-indulgence, cheapening even what’s supposed to be a B-movie.
‘Honey Don’t!’ receives a score of 30 out of 100.
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What is the plot of ‘Honey Don’t!’?
In Bakersfield, California, female private detective Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley) investigates a woman’s death and tangles with the head of a mysterious church.
