Tag: Nikki Amuka-Bird

Knock At The Cabin

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★☆ (3.8/5)

Rated: MKnock At The Cabin

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Screenplay by: M. Night Shyamalan and Steve Desmond & Michael Sherman

Based on the book: The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

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

Starring: Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn and Rupert Grint.

‘It’s time.’

There’s always the mystery, the waiting for the twist with M. Night Shyamalan movies – here, it felt like Shyamalan holding his nerve while adding touches, echoes of his previous films: the creaking of trees as the wind shifts through them while the characters wait and watch to see what monster will slowly come into view.

Instead of monsters, four people emerge.  But it’s Leonard (Dave Bautista) who first introduces himself to young Wen (Kristen Cui).  She’s catching crickets.

‘I’m just going to learn about you a little,’ she says.

Leonard helps.  He’s good at catching crickets.

They’re going to be friends.

Until his three colleagues show themselves: Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn) and Redmond (Rupert Grint).

They’re holding weapons made from axes and sledge hammers.

Wen gets scared and runs back to the cabin, back to her two dads, Daddy Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Daddy Eric (William Ragsdale).  They’re a loving family.  Andrew and Eric promise each other to always be together, no matter what.

So when Leonard and his colleagues tell them they have to make a terrible choice to stop the apocalypse, they will always choose their family.

Even if the intruders say they have the most important job in the world.

Are they ‘Jehovah witnesses?’ asks Ben.

Knock at the Cabin is a serious film, with brutal and bloody moments.  The opening of sketches of crows and screaming faces.  But the tension is offset with light moments like these doomsayer’s wielding weapons being possibly Jehovah witnesses.

Not laugh at loud funny, but light.

The impending doom and the bloody is also a contrast to flashbacks to family: the love, the honesty; when Andrew and Eric first met Wen.

It’s genuinely sweet and adds weight to the choice they refuse to make.

The pacing of the story shows restraint making this one of Shyamalan’s better quality films.

It’s a deceptively simple structure, most of the film set within the cabin, that builds just the right amount of tension while playing with expectation.

The delivery was there to support the idea of the story: not too funny, nor too violent, or too caught up in the drama of the family, just light touches to suspend the reality of the extreme premise of ordinary people faced with the idea of the world ending.

 

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.

The Children Act

Rated: MThe Children Act

Directed by: Richard Eyre

Produced by: Duncan Kenworthy

Screenplay based on his Novel by: Ian McEwan

Starring: Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Fionn Whitehead, Ben Chaplin, Jason Watkins, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Anthony Calf, Rosie Cavaliero, Eileen Walsh, Nicholas Jones and Rupert Vansittart.

The Children Act is based on the novel written by Ian Ewan – he also writes the screenplay stating he started writing after spending time with ‘a handful of judges’ who were ‘Talking shop’.

A Sir Alan Ward (an appeal court judge) left the table to consult a bound volume of his own judgments to settle a disagreement.  Ian found himself with the book, reading the judgments and finding the cases written like short stories; those involved captured in broad strokes; the dilemma written with sympathy for the ones who inevitably lose.

Several years later, The Children Act was written.

The film opens with the sound of a gentle heartbeat, blood reaching through arteries like the branches of trees the film revolving around a case where a seventeen-year-old Jehovah Witness’ boy, Adam (Fionn Whitehead) who has leukemia, refuses a blood transfusion because of his faith.

To the Jehovah Witness, the soul, like life itself, lives in the blood, therefore, it belongs to God.  To allow another person’s blood or soul enter his veins would be blasphemous.

The hospital moves to force the transfusion under the instruction of The Children Act, 1989:

“When a court determines any question with respect to … the upbringing of a child … the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration.”

The case lands on the desk of eminent High Court judge Fiona Maye (Emma Thompson), who now childless and struggling in the relationship with her husband Jack (Stanley Tucci) because of her commitment to her career, finds her emotions breaking through her usual cold rational as she decides the fate of Adam’s life – to allow him to die for his faith, or force him to live at the cost of his beliefs.

She decides to hear from Adam himself, to see that he understands the painful death that awaits at the refusal of the transfusion.

A highly unusual circumstance, she sits by his hospital bed and ends up singing with him as he plays his guitar.

This is a practical, concise and highly intelligent woman who has sworn not to allow her emotion to enter her decision-making process – all very believable from the performance of Emma Thompson.  Her place is to make decisions based on law not morals.

All the while imagining her husband having an affair, writing a text, ‘Having fun?’ Then having to delete when work and making life-and-death decisions for other people and their families once again become the priority.

When Adam survives, when his life is more important than his dignity, he chases the only one who understands: the woman who decided to save his life.

This is a film about the characters who are making serious decisions all day, every day.  Emma Thompson shows clarity of mind when making a judgment in court balanced against the confusion and overflow of hurt when her husband explains his unhappiness in their marriage: ‘Do you remember the last time we made love?’ he asks.

‘No idea!’ she states while pouring over the arguments for and against the separation of conjoined twins.

Then we see this fascinating case of Adam playout in court, from the medical side to the point of view of his parents, to the clear mind of a judge entangled in emotion from her personal life, to still be able to make concise decisions; the consequences of her decision shown in this strange and precocious boy who lives.  Who wants to know more about the life he feels he owes to her.

The film asks the question – if you save a life, are you responsible for that life?

Not in the court of law.

The Children Act is a quietly emotive film that gives a deeper understanding of those stories we’ve all read in the papers.

It’s a thought-provoking film about how the court has more power over life than religion.  And the cost it takes from those who make the judgment and the ones who have to live with a decision not their own.

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