Disclosure

Rated: MA15+Disclosure

Written and Directed by: Michael Bentham

Starring: Geraldine Hakewill, Matilda Ridgway, Mark Leonard Winter and Tom Wren.

‘There are two sides to every story, and then there is the truth.’ – Anon.

Disclosure is a complex, layered and thought-provoking film, where the perspective of each character shows a different version of their truth.

That’s the narrative of the film: four parents trying to come to an understanding when Emily (Matilda Ridgway) and Danny Bowman’s (Mark Leonard Winter) four-year-old daughter, Natasha describes sexual abuse from Ethan: the nine-year-old son of Bek (Geraldine Hakewill) and Joel Chalmers (Tom Wren).

Bek refuses to believe her son capable of such an act.

And Emily is distraught that such an act has happened to her daughter.

Do they go to Child Protection?

Do they seek counselling for their children?

What decision will do the least damage to their kids?

Set in the house and backyard of the Bowmans, the film is made of silence between the dialogue, between the parents trying to behave as adults while they fall apart.

At first the film shows fractures in the façade: the politician, an MP currently under the watchful eye of police protection with his immaculate wife dressed for a fund raiser.  A family doing the best for the community.

And then there’s the two journalists, award winning documentary on the horizon, a book waiting to be published.

Intelligent.  Adults.  Friends.

Surely they can come to an understanding.

But as the conversation continues, the cicadas fill those awkward silences as the fractures widen into cracks.

‘My daughter has a name,’ says Danny.

While Joel the MP asks for reason as he’s about to launch a campaign: Strong families.  Safe children.

The complexities underneath the words are slowly revealed.

The characters drive the film as the environment of the house in the suburbs, filmed in the Dandenong’s, surrounded by trees is deceiving in its simplicity; as the parents sit by the pool, a spider dancing across the water, as shadows move underneath.

The setting is used to show the emotional tone of shock.  The distress of even talking about a son abusing a friend’s daughter leaking through the surface adults hold firmly in place: would you like a drink?  Snacks are arranged.  All those rituals of social engagement are slowly worn away as the parents attempt to process what may or may not have happened with their children.  And the consequences.

This is a tough topic to portray in a film, writer and director, Michael Bentham using the slowing down of movement, the drawing away of the camera to show denial; the shadows across a face to represent barely controlled anger, a spider web stepping the process of thought from one layer to another.

The very idea of sex and kids and porn and what’s OK for adults and how that can influence the behaviour of a child, to dealing with allegations from another child is like a minefield.  The difficulty of figuring the right way to handle the situation without losing your mind as a parent is navigated through dark corridors, beyond the surface into unexpected deep layers to where the characters hold their own truth.

I didn’t expect the depth of this film.

And the dialogue and delivery is strong.

But not always hitting the mark.

And although the slow motion was used well, the scenes with slow motion and missing frames (like a stop frame technique) feels cheap and makes me think of some re-enactment of a crime story on the news.

Having said that, if you’re in the mood for a quiet thought-provoker, the way the complexity of character is revealed makes, Disclosure a riveting watch.

The Ice Road

Rated: MThe Ice Road

Directed and Written by: Jonathan Hensleigh

Director of Photography: Tom Stern

Produced by: Al Corley, Bart Rosenblatt, Eugene Musso, Shivani Rawat, Lee Nelson, David Tish

Starring: Liam Neeson, Laurence J. Fishburne III, Marcus Thomas, Amber Midthunder, Benjamin Walker, Matt McCoy, Holt McCallany, Martin Sensmeier, Matt Salinger.

Hauling heavy loads over ice is what truckers call an ice road, meaning, a suicide mission.

So much can go wrong.

And does in this action drama with Liam Neeson behind the wheel as Mike: a trucker with a one punch knockout.

He’s a trucker always getting fired looking out for his veteran brother, Gurty (Marcus Thomas) suffering from aphasia: ‘I am the only one who can understand what he is saying, and he’s a brilliant mechanic, but he does not like taking orders,’ says Neeson about his character.

After a methane pocket causes an explosion at a diamond mine, miners are trapped with a thirty-hour window until their oxygen runs out.  The only way to get drilling wellheads to free the men is to haul by truck, over an ice-road closed for the season.

Goldenrod (Laurence J. Fishburne III) is called in to get the job done.

The only way Goldenrod can see a truck making it through to the miners is by sending three trucks, in the hope one will make it through to the miners.

It’s a strategy of tactical redundancy.

Fired from yet another job, the Irish, tooth-pick in mouth trucker, Mike decides the risk is worth the reward – enough cash to put towards his own rig.  He takes one truck.

In the second is Goldenrod himself.

In the third is Tantoo (Amber Midthunder), just bailed from jail after protesting against all of North America for taking her ancestors land.

Each take a rig with two-hundred thousand on the table to share, or to go to whoever makes it to the other side, along with Insurance man, Varnay (Benjamin Walker) there to protect his company’s investment.  And Gurty’s pet rat.

The fuse is lit.

And there literally is a fuse burning to ignite dynamite at one point.  It’s that kind of movie.

With winches and d bolts and petrol in diesel tanks as sabotage.  The action’s relentless.  And by the end overdone with choppy editing to cut down the problem solving montages to speed up the action, along with splicing to another scene that worked most of the time but by the end left gaping holes.  Like, how did the rig go from full speed to idling in a second?

And why isn’t that guy with the broken leg screaming his head off?

But this ‘bull run’ about ice-truckers who can stop for nothing and no-one has the constant underlying suspense of the trucks always on the verge of cracking through the ice and sinking.

As Tantoo coolly explains to Varnay the insurance guy:

Movement causes waves so if you drive too fast, there’s too much movement.  The ice cracks.  In you go.

Too slow, the ice breaks under the weight of the rig.  In you go.

I actually yelled a few times.

The whole idea of ice-truckers is exciting to watch.

Writer and director Jonathan Hensleigh didn’t want to shoot a VFX film: “I wanted real background – the ice road, the mountain driving sequences, I wanted it all to look real.”

And seeing the rigs driven across the ice is the best part of the film.

Pairing back the action and filling the gaps so the editing wasn’t so choppy would have built on that suspense of driving those 18-wheeler rigs across ice.  With one problem after another needing to be solved, it was all a bit unbelievable by the end.

But as action movies go, Neeson always managers to pull it off.  And the storyline had enough going for it with a few twists and well-placed punches from, ‘kiss my Irish arse,’ Mike that made, The Ice Road, worth a watch.

The Suicide Squad

Rated: MA15+The Suicide Squad

Directed and Written by: James Gunn

Produced by: Charles Roven, Peter Safran

Starring: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, Joel Kinnaman, John Cena, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Michael Rooker, Flula Borg, David Dastmalchian and Taika Waititi.

‘Is that rat waving at me?’

The opening scene sees the death of a pretty yellow bird.

Birds feature a lot in, The Suicide Squad mark II.

To the extent I was wondering by the end – what’s with the birds?!  Is it because they represent freedom?  Could be something in that, the squad been given a chance at freedom, etc.

Like the first film, potential members of Task Force X are found languishing in Belle Reve: the prison with the highest mortality rate in America.

Languishing until Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) offers them a deal they can’t refuse: 10 years off their sentence in hell.  Or for those not tempted by the reduced sentence, the promise not to incarcerate a ten-year-old daughter (Storm Reid) that would more than likely mean death.

Sent on another impossible bloody mission, this time to the jungle of Corto Maltese, there’s the same antics from characters such as Captain Boomerang (Michael Rooker) with a whole new cast of villains with unique skills like: Peacemaker (John Cena) who loves to walk around in his y-fronts, Bloodsport (Idris Elba) who really does not get along with Peacemaker, King Shark (Sylvester Stallone)  – apparently a god who now has a taste for human and amongst other new characters, Polka-Dot (David Dastmalchian): the man has issues.  With leader Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) back to direct the chaos.

The film has the same foundation as the first instalment, a squad of anti-heroes sent on a covert mission by the government – but way more extreme.

There’s still that manic fun tone, with the likes of Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) shooting her way to freedom with a demented smile, but I don’t remember the first instalment being so brutal.

Not that nasty is necessarily a bad thing.

I’m a big fan of gallows humour, and there were a lot of funny moments that tickled, sometimes unexpectedly like seeing the back view of Milton (Julio Cesar Ruiz), the bus driver, as he runs after the squad to ‘help out’ in his shorts and Crocs.

And making light of a trained rat, friend of Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), 2 because the first Ratcatcher was her father (Taika Waititi, yep Taika’s in it!):

‘Is that rat waving at me?

‘It appears it is’

…’Why?’

But sometimes the humour was just that bit too off-kilter – see above about the birds.

It was about 50/50 for me.  But when the humour hit, it tickled A LOT.

The narrative goes back and forth in time, highlighted by the inclusion of text in scene – leaves falling to write, ‘Now’.

There’s more clever with relief from the blood and guts when blood’s replaced with an explosion of flowers.

And that blending of scene continues with music played in the bus becoming the soundtrack, the, Pixies track, ‘Hey’ backing the squad as they walk into their next suicide mission.  Gold.

The attention to detail is impressive as director James Gunn pushes the boundaries so the humour’s darker, the violence more bloody, with an added extra tilt towards the demented.

Tending towards horror and comedy rather than action, there’s a lot of entertainment here but brace yourself, it gets twisted.

Old

Rated: MOld

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Written by: M. Night Shyamalan

Based on the Graphic Novel: ‘Sandcastle’ by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters

Produced by: M. Night Shyamalan, Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock

Starring: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee, Aaron Pierre, Kathleen Chalfant, Alexa Swinton, Nolan River, Kylie Begley, Embeth Davidtz, Eliza Scanlen, Alex Wolff, Emun Elliott, Thomasin McKenzie.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the trailer for, Old: people going to a beach and getting old.  Quickly.

But being a Shyamalan film, there’s always going to be more to the story.

Based on the graphic novel, Sandcastle the idea of people stranded on a beach, rapidly aging, gave Shyamalan the foundation of the film.

I don’t know whether it’s because I haven’t been to the beach, heard the waves or being greeted at a resort with a cocktail for a while (supposed to be in Magnetic Island right now but currently in lockdown, grrr) – the scenery added another dimension: the water always flowing, keeping time.

The Capa family arrive via a private bus to resort, Anamica.

There’s the sound of birds and cicadas: the sound of the tropics.

The daughter, Maddox (Alexa Swinton) is singing.

‘I can’t wait to hear it when you’re older,’ says Prisca (Vicky Krieps) about her daughter’s voice, mother of Maddox and young son Trent (Nolan River).

Some of the hints are heavy handed.

Yet the family dynamic with husband, Guy (Gael García Bernal) and Prisca’s relationship being played out in front of their children; and their young son hanging out with his new friend, Idlib (Kailen Jude) son of the resort manager: ‘What’s your name and occupation,’ the two boys ask the resort guests.  It’s the sort of thing kids do when they’re free and happy on holidays.  And a great way to introduce the main characters.

It’s all very watchable.

Like an easy listening radio station.  It’s easy watching.

But there’s always hints of what’s to come.

A guest has an epileptic seizure at breakfast.  But she’s OK.

Parents keep secrets from their kids.

There’re buzzards flying overhead.

Given an invitation to a private beach, it’s made very clear it’s a secret.  Just for the Capa family.  But then other guests get on board the bus.

They’re driven through the jungle.

Just walk through a cave and you’re there.

The cave opens-up onto a pristine beach, surrounded by rocky cliffs.

A lone man sits in the distance.

The kids find buried cutlery and dolls in the sand.

There’s no phone reception.

Then the children on the beach begin to change.

‘Something is going on with time on this beach.’

I expected the build to be boring.  But there’s enough mystery going on with the characters inside the main storyline to allow pace.

The timing is important in the film because the whole story’s about time.

Old isn’t edge-of-your-seat action or thriller, but suspense handled well.

The kids particularly at the start of the film ease the story in nicely.

I like Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) as the mum.

The casting all round was well done, the change of the young kids to the older characters believable.

Except the glaring change in eye colour for one character (not giving anything away), from blue to brown when she gets older a jolt out of a tenuous suspended reality.  I don’t know whether I missed something or a genuine oversight?  But it felt like swapping out an actor in a soap opera and everyone pretending it’s the same character.  The change threw me.

Yet even after this stretch the film was still better than expected with good pacing making the mystery overall, an intriguing watch.

Gunpowder Milkshake

Rated: MA 15+Gunpowder Milkshake

Directed by: Navot Papushado

Screenplay by: Navot Papushado, Ehud Lavski

Producers: Andrew Rona, p.g.a. Alex Heineman, p.g.a

Starring: Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Chloe Coleman, Paul Giamatti, Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh, Angela
Bassett.

Gunpowder Milkshake opens to the sounds of a thunderstorm as lone assassin Sam (Karen Gillan) is
completing a hit in her target’s apartment. A rhythmic thudding draws her attention so she turns toward the door. Behind it is a small militia with all guns drawn and pointed at her.

Later, when she is tucked up at home watching TV and casually stitching a flesh wound on her own arm, Sam receives a call summoning her to meet with Nathan (Paul Giamatti), her handler and front man for a shadowy cabal called The Firm.

She’s in trouble.

‘It was supposed to be a low profile gig, not a massacre.’

She has killed the wrong man and The Firm wants to cut her loose, leaving her unprotected.

One of the attackers Sam dispatched was the son of an influential crime figure that The Firm wants onside. When his henchmen find her, Jim McAlester (Ralph Ineson) has vowed, ‘to do terrible things’ to her.

There is only one place left for Sam to turn. The Library. A front and an armoury for a nest of female assassins.

Filmed in Berlin, director Navot Papushado’s city has that otherworldly, Dark City-esque sense of a city forever in darkness lit with glowing neon, a city we recognise but can’t quite identify.

In this parallel reality the violence is so extreme, so gratuitous and so utterly over-the-top that it has a cartoon quality, but it’s the crazily inventive and completely goofy situations that arise from the action that set this movie apart.

If Sam is to leave the Dental Surgery she uses as a makeshift hospital, she must fight her way out of an ambush with both of her arms paralysed.

For their side, the faceless men in black suits, The Firm’s board members and McAlester’s mafia-style crime family both represent rigidly hierarchical organisations. ‘They make all the rules and change them when it suits their needs’, always assured of their ability to muster overwhelming force.

When McAlester’s man Virgil (Adam Nagaitis) yells out, ‘You think you have a chance here? I’ve got an army!’ He means it. His boss has sent a bus full of men to take Sam down.

Sheltering from the gunfire behind the library’s check in desk with her mother (Lena Headey), Sam counters, ‘I’ve got my mum’.

Sam’s retort is pitch perfect and it beautifully encapsulates so much of the nuance in the movie. Not only does it acknowledge the fact of Sam’s dearly longed for relationship with her estranged mother in this desperate moment and the ferocity of her mother, she is a formidable ally, but also the way that the movie unobtrusively values the traditionally feminine arts such as sewing alongside gun slinging and close-quarters combat.

Never underestimate a librarian, or the emancipating qualities of good book. The women are kickass in this movie, taking it up to the men on their own terms, even while they have quietly created pockets of resistance that function beneath their notice and an ingenious method to hide their weapons.

This movie is just plain fun to watch.

The County (Héraðið)

Rated:The County

Directed and Written by: Grimur Hakonarson

Starring: Ardís Hrönn Egilsdottir, Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson, Hinrik Olafsson, borsteinn Bachmann.

Icelandic with English subtitles

The Co-op grocery store.
The back-stop of the community.

In true farming fashion, Inga (Ardís Hrönn Egilsdottir) pulls a calf from a cow’s womb.
The calf looks up. Healthy.
Inga sits back, proud.

This is a woman who takes pride in her work. Not pride, exactly. Appreciation, of the everyday.

Her husband, Reynir (Hinrik Olafsson) snuggles close to her as Inga works in bed on her laptop, writing.

Seems like an ordinary life – a farm in The County, surrounded by snow on heather; there’s tractors and drinking while watching the game.

Then it starts.

First with a man from the Co-op bailing up a painter for buying his paint from elsewhere.

Then Inga wonders why they can’t buy fertilizer cheaper from a different distributor.

Why should the Co-op decide where they purchase their goods?

Why?

Because the Co-op will take the land from under the farmers if there’s debt.

And how do farmers get out of debt when they’re forced to pay more from the Co-Op?

They can’t.

It’s what Inga calls, ‘The Co-op mafia.’

And she’s not afraid to post articles about it.

The County is a slow burn drama (not really a comedy) that follows Inga as she uncovers the wrong that so many others in the community turn a blind eye to because of the hold one company can have when they’re the only option.

But there’s more to the story then a bent company.

This is a slow tear tracing a cheek as the snow falls.

This is about grief. And letting go.

I like the message here and seeing the strength of character – a woman standing up for what’s right; to free herself.

Quiet in the telling, this is a countryside drama without any thrills, just a good quality character study without flash because Inga wouldn’t need it.

Better to see the truth.

Little Joe

Rated: MLittle Joe

Directed and Screenplay by: Jessica Hausner

Produced by: Bruno Wagner, Bertrand Faivre, Philippe Bober Martin Gschlacht, Jessica Hausner, Gerardine O’Flynn

Cinematography: Martin Gschlacht

Starring: Emily Beecham, Ben Wishaw, Kerry Fox, Kit Connor, David Wilmot, Phénix Brossard, Sebastian Hülk and Lindsay Duncan.

Plant breeder, Alice (Emily Beecham) has genetically engineered a plant that releases a scent to make its owner happy.

She names the mood lifting plant after her son: Little Joe.

Alice has a good relationship with Joe (Kit Connor); a typical teenager, ‘Yep, whatever.’

Until he breathes in the scent of the happy plant.  Because once you breath in the scent of Little Joe, you become infected.  You become, a different person.

That’s what Bella (Kerry Fox) says.  A plant breeder for over twenty years.

But she’s crazy.  She has to be crazy to think a plant can change someone.

The premise of the film, superficially, seems a stretch.  But the way the story unfolds leads with the spacious feeling of a secret.  I wasn’t sure where I was being led but there were a lot of red flags.  Literally: the red font in the opening credits, the red diffuse light, the red hair, red car, red cherry, all leading back to the red flower of the plant named, Little Joe.

That feeling of a secret, of a quiet other world is enhanced by the soundtrack, the music written by Japanese composer, Teiji Ito.  There’s this high-pitched whistle, like the plants are communicating amongst the sound of a flute floating, building with drums that flourish, marking steps in the story that are guided by science.

The strangeness of the idea works because the characters are scientists talking about science – the genetically engineered plants created using virus vectors that release oxytocin.

Bella makes the point that because the plant is sterile – has to be made sterile, because it’s genetically engineered and there’s a risk of the plant running wild in nature, and of course the commercial aspect – it’s natural for the plant to want to reproduce.  So, imagine a plant where a virus vector mutates to not only cause happiness, but to work towards reproducing itself.

Oxytocin, is otherwise known as the mother hormone because it’s released into the blood stream in response to love and childbirth, to create a bond.

You look after the plant, you feed it, keep it warm, talk to it, and Little Joe rewards you with happiness.

‘Knock on wood.’

Says Alice during a therapy session.

‘What worries you?’ asks her psychotherapist (Lindsay Duncan).

Knock on wood.

Which of your children will you choose?

The film follows Alice as she navigates her desire to work versus the love she has for Joe, her feelings towards fellow scientist, Chris (Ben Wishaw) and her fear that the plant she’s created is in fact changing people.

Is it fear that distorts how she sees the world?  Or is she finally able to see what she’s really afraid of?

What is it that she secretly wishes for?

The film scratches at those secret desires using those feelings as a vehicle to hide the agenda of the story.  Like the agenda of a new entity that wants to reproduce but can’t, so uses the happy hormone to replicate, to be cared for.

It’s clever.  But the tone of film isn’t about being clever; it’s just different.  And interesting, with a subtle flavour of the disconcerting.

 

Herself

Rated: MA 15+Herself

Directed by: Phyllida Lloyd

Written by: Malcolm Campbell, Clare Dunne

Produced by: Sharon Horgan, Ed Guiney, Rory Gilmartin

Starring: Clare Dunne, Harriet Walter, Conleth Hill, Ian Lloyd Anderson.

‘I miss him. I don’t mean him, I mean who he was. I want to fix it.’

This is just one of the many heartbreaking tests to her resolve that a woman must face when she flees her home and her partner to protect herself and her children.

On one level, Herself is a subtle game of cat and mouse between husband and wife (especially on
the husband’s side).

While his character operates mostly from behind the scenes, the escalation of
the husband’s machinations asks whether this is a man sinking into the depths his own desperation
or a monster gradually revealing himself.

At the same time his wife is discovering both the depths and the heights of what she will do to take care of her children.

The film opens on three silhouetted figures and the sounds of children giggling. Two young girls are
inexpertly applying makeup to their mother’s face. Beneath her right eye is a distinctive birthmark,
from a distance it could almost be a black eye, but Sandra (Clare Dunne) asks her daughters not to
cover it up and she relates a sweet story to Emily and Molly about how it makes her special.

Later that afternoon when Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson) arrives home from work his daughters run to
him, still giggling. This man is clearly not a monster. That is, until he sends his daughters out into the
garden. Gary has found some cash that Sandra had hidden and he fears that she could use the
money to leave him. He wants to make her stay, but what he does next is the very thing that will
ensure that Sandra does leave, however reluctant she may have been to take such a vast step into
the unknown.

As it is, Sandra and her daughters find themselves crammed into a tiny room at an airport hotel and
Gary is forced to move back in with his parents. Although Sandra and the girls adapt to their new
situation, using the airport car park as their own roller skating rink, it’s not a long term solution. But
Sandra cannot go back. Nor can she find her girls a permanent home. Like many parts of the western
world prior to the pandemic, Sandra endures long queues for rental properties that are ultimately
unattainable.

It is not until she is snuggled up with the girls one night and her eldest, Emily, relates a
story that she had heard in class that Sandra lights upon a solution.

She will build her own house.

It’s an unlikely undertaking for a single mother working two low paid jobs and not a single skill related to carpentry or building but, as it turns out, it’s still more likely than finding a rental.

However, trouble is brewing in the wings. When he cannot bribe his girls and he fails to persuade
Sandra to come back to him, Gary resorts to guilt trips and manipulation, and finally he turns to
force. This time, using the courts as his bludgeon.

For once, Sandra is intimidated. She is so fearful that she is even prepared to cover up her birthmark,
if that will help to convince the court that she is a responsible and capable mother.

An engaging cast takes this conversation we as a society must have and raises it to a warm and
engrossing story; even as, at the same time, it is a realistic depiction of the tug of longing, the
practical difficulties, the uncertainty and the disruption to their lives that women and children must
endure when they are forced to abandon their home.

In The Heights

Rated: PGIn The Heights

Directed by: Jon M Chu

Produced by: Lin-Manuel Miranda

Starring: Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Lesley Grace, Melissa Barrera, Olga Merediz, Daphine Rubin-Vega, Gregory Diaz IV, Stephanie Beatriz, Dascha Polanco and Jimmy Smits.

‘I’m home.’

It’s three days until the blackout.  And it’s hot in Washington Heights.

Everyone in the block is fanning themselves as they dream their sueñito: little dream.

Bodega owner Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) dreams of running his father’s beach bar back in the Dominican Republic.

Vanessa (Melissa Barrera) dreams of becoming a fashion designer.

In The Heights is colourful and full of soul, hope and love as everyone fights for their own little dream. And there’s singing.  The entire movie is singing.

I know that it’s a musical.  I’m not saying I completely ignored the advertising.  But when I say the entire movie, I mean there’s signing about everything: coffee, fireworks, all the dialogue.

It took me a good long while to warm up because it was all a bit overwhelming and at the start all I could think was, can you please stop singing!

Then Nina (Lesley Grace), returned-from-college, and boyfriend-left-behind, Ben (Corey Hawkins) start with these absolutely pristine, stunning voices and it all kinda started to click.

The story has layers: the classic making a move when it’s too late, looking everywhere but what’s in front; there’s change and dealing with that change, the struggle to keep working everyday, just to make ends meet; and how some take a run at their dream only to realise it’s not what they really want at all.

Sometimes it’s just about adding details to hold dignity.

Aunt to everyone in the block, Abula Claudia takes the time to share the hardship of her mother travelling to America, to work as a maid, who covered her red worked hands with beautiful velvet gloves because it felt nice to wear those gloves.  She would create something special by stitching intricate patterns into cloth.  To hold dignity in the little things.

And this detail translates into the film itself, a musical not just for show but surprise with all those extra flourishes in the choreography and blending of animation into a scene or to dance on the side of a building to tilt the world, to have bolts of cloth unravel, up in the sky while running so fast underneath.  All these details gave this musical its own dignity.

I admit, I am not a fan of musicals, especially when the characters sing about what they’re doing from one moment to next.  But there’s real beauty here, with just a touch of magic.

The Mole Agent

Rated: GThe Mole Agent

Directed by: Maite Alberdi

Produced by: Marcela Santibáñez

Executive Producer: Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn, Julie Goldman

Featuring as Themselves: Sergio as the Spy, Romulo as the Private Detective, and the Residents of the Nursing Home: Berta “Bertita” Ureta, Marta Olivares, Petronila “Petita” Abarca, Rubira Olivares, Zoila González.

Spanish (Chilean) with English subtitles.

“Elderly man needed. Between 80-90 years old.”

Job: spying on old folks and staff in a nursing home for three months.

Well, to report back about target, Sophia Perez because her daughter is concerned that Sophia’s being mistreated.

It took me a moment to realise the film was a documentary as, The Mole Agent begins with this light-hearted tone of jazzy soundtrack featuring classic moments of eighty-plus-year-olds being taught to work mobile phones; the successful candidate, 83-year-old Sergio being shown how to call via Facetime, leave voicemail messages via WhatsApp to make his, ‘Deliveries’ or pass information to private investigator Romulo to then translate back to the client.

The older generation tying to figure mobile phones always leads to some amusing moments.

But Sergio gets it, kinda.

It was when the cameras filming the documentary were shown via a mobile camera as Sergio’s being taught to use the device that the film turns from comedy spy-movie to documentary.

Then we see Sergio enter the nursing home, one resident seen holding her walker with one hand, a hose to water the garden in the other and I realise this is a different kind of documentary.

Sergio begins his mission:

‘Did you meet the new man?’ One resident asks another.

Sergio causes quite a stir.  He’s lucid.  And a gentleman.

Director Maite Alberdi states that the team got authorisation from the nursing home with the understanding that the film was a documentary about the elderly (not following an unknown ‘spy’ reporting back to a private detective everyday while being filmed by the crew).

The production team were given permission to film for three months with 300 hours of material captured, plus the material filmed by Sergio himself using a spy pen – very clever, if not a little obvious.  Particularly when other residents try to take the pen from his shirt pocket.

So the cameras are seen in the film and explained to the residents with the line about a documentary about the elderly so when new resident Sergio enters, it’s only natural the crew would take interest in the most recent addition.

At one point a resident sitting out in the sun points out to another gran, ‘They’re supposed to be filming a movie, not spying on us.’

But Sergio manages to continue his investigation about the treatment of Mrs Perez without getting busted.

There are many sweet moments: the thieving Marta with her quick hands, always asking when her mother’s going to take her home; there’s the poet Petita reciting her beautiful thoughts, the random resident cats and the surprise birthday celebrations.

There’s Berta who has a crush on Sergio saying she would consider giving God her virginity.  Through her future husband (Sergio).

But realising the film is documentary and not a spy comedy, although there are some funny moments, makes the film that much sadder.

The Mole Agent is like a homage to the isolated and lonely elderly, left and abandoned by their families.

And the depth of sadness felt by these old folks as they try to buck-up and be positive but are really grieving about their lives lost in sacrifice to children who never visit them…  It’s a bit of a heart-breaker.

Over time, instead of spying on the old folks, Sergio befriends them.  And they absolutely love him for it: ‘Thank-you for the company you give us,’ says Zoila.

Even the camera crew were missed, ‘and we missed them!’  The crew reports.

The audience is shown how life is lived in these homes, getting to see behind the closed doors as the cameras become part of the landscape.

The Mole Agent is sweet and very sad; completely different to what I was expecting and truly unique.

When Alberdi was asked, “What do you hope audiences take away and learn from The Mole Agent?”

Alberdi replies, “I would like people who watch this movie to leave the movie theatre wanting to call their parents or grandparents. It is an invitation to look within yourself and ask what you can do better.”

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