Film reviews

Goa-Gunggari-Wakka Wakka Murri filmmaker Leah Purcell has walked a long and winding road from relishing a beloved bedtime story read by her late mother, to the big-screen debut of bush epic The Drover’s Wife.

The classic short tale of a harried bush woman who fiercely guards her young children while her husband is away on business, by bush poet Henry Lawson, stuck in the back of Purcell’s mind as a wriggling niggle needing to be unpicked. Many years later, in 2016, she would star in the Helpmann Award-winning stage play that she also penned. Rewriting the narrative through an anti-colonial, Black and feminist lens, Purcell bestowed a First Nations background and the moniker Molly Johnson on Lawson’s unnamed protagonist. Delving deeper into Molly’s troubles in the novel of the same name, this film marks her third spin at the material. It’s still riveting. 

Writer-director Purcell once more inhabits Molly’s skin. A strong and proud woman, she holds her own against those who encroach on her hardscrabble land. When escaped convict and traditional storyteller Yadaka (a charismatic Rob Collins) turns up at her door in broken chains, he doesn’t receive the warmest welcome. The weight of history that this soulful man brings with him digs up trauma from her past that’s half-glimpsed in the film’s startling opening sequence.

Disturbed by the shadow of a great huffing, puffing bull, his impending death at the end of Molly’s shotgun sparks a flashback of another terrible incident. These twin night terrors are intercut with the vision of a bruised and battered Molly on horse and cart in the glaring sun. How does it all fit together? 

Purcell has done a remarkable job piecing together something even greater than Lawson offered. As Molly, she brings the full weight of her inimitable screen presence that has lit up movies like Lantana, Last Cab to Darwin and Somersault, and seminal series Wentworth and Redfern Now. It’s a gift to see her at work in a role she knows inside out by now. Collins, who previously worked with Purcell on episodes of the First Nations superhero story Cleverman, which she directed, more than holds his own. He captivates in a traditional dance sequence in which Yadaka relays the fate of that unfortunate bull.

The film is at its strongest when focused tightly on Molly and Yadaka. Their tenuous truce is almost immediately upturned by the arrival of a new cop in town, Sergeant Klintoff, played with charm by Lambs of God star Sam Reid. An ostensibly well-meaning force, he can’t help but bring the overbearing arm of the law beating down on Yadaka.

Cinematographer Mark Wareham’s keen eye for capturing seasonal shifts in the Blue Mountains brings beauty to this brutal tale. Dealing in the deep scars of the Frontier Wars, police violence in custody, and government policy that led to the Stolen Generation, The Drover’s Wife is set in the past, but depressingly relevant to the present.

Purcell works in a clever strand on the failure of the emerging feminist movement to be truly intersectional, tapping Cut Snake’s Jessica De Gouw as Klintoff’s wife Louisa, but it gets a little clunky in the final act. That’s a minor misstep in a powerful, and still quite rare, view on the fraught founding of contemporary Australia as told from a woman’s perspective, by a woman filmmaker. And that’s to be celebrated.

Out in Australia May 5 and UK cinemas May 13.

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness is a solid reminder of what we love about Sam Raimi’s brand of moviemaking: both superhero (Spider-Man 2) and horror (Evil Dead II). While Benedict Cumberbatch’s original solo outing, directed by Scott Derrickson, delivered a cerebral LSD trip with a sinister inflection, Raimi’s penchant for gore is executed to euphoric effect. His nose for those old Spidey themes of responsibility and power, meanwhile, manifest in the three suitably weighty central performances.

Screenwriter Michael Waldron has to pick up from multiple story threads left over from multiple other Marvel shows and movies, but does a solid job in delivering a mostly self-contained adventure. The story sees Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Wanda Maximoff (aka Scarlet Witch, aka Elizabeth Olsen) coming to terms with the magical choices they’ve already made: his, in saving the world through his actions in Avengers: Infinity War; hers, in the false reality she conjured out of her grief in WandaVision.

Non-MCU devotees might get lost amid all these callbacks, but at its heart, this is a simple tale of whether the price of happiness is worth the moral cost. (And they probably won’t be sitting through a Doctor Strange sequel in the first place.) There’s a couple of McGuffins in the form of two magic books representing good and evil, and a lot of wacky interdimensional travel, as Strange tries to track them down to prevent his universe collapsing with his new kinda-mentee, America Chavez. 

It’s a reminder of what we love about Sam Raimi, even if non-MCU devotees might get lost in the callbacks

Newcomer Xochitl Gomez is endearing as the portal-travelling Chavez, while Olsen makes a welcome return as Scarlet Witch, elevating her whole ‘prodigal Avenger’ arc. She’s on form as a bereaved mum desperate to be reunited with the children she lost, and relishes every moment of horror that’s thrown at her. Cumberbatch’s Strange, meanwhile, whose line in arrogant charm is particularly well-tuned now, is still finding pathos amid the out-there visuals of his standalone films. 

Also amping up the sense of fun is Danny Elfman’s delirious score and some (we hope knowingly) cheesy dialogue. And the much-publicised cameos – yes, there are plenty – should thrill comic-book lovers used to seeing random heroes pop up in one-issue storylines.  

Sure, Raimi’s latest Marvel entry is a theme-park ride, lighter on character development and heavier on gnarly shit that may signal a shift into a darker, more deranged phase of superhero storytelling. But it’s one hell of a ride. 

Out now in Singapore. In UK and Australian cinemas May 5, and US theaters May 6. 

The multiverse is clearly having a moment. After Marvel gave us several Spider-Men and Doctor Stranges in its last two movies, we now have director duo ‘the Daniels’ (Kwan and Scheinert, Swiss Army Man) exploring the same meta-territory of parallel worlds, but in their own ultra-idiosyncratic way.

The concept is a doozy, ripe with comedic juice and packed with visual thrills. The inhabitants of another universe have discovered a way to jump into the minds of their alternative selves and absorb their skills (similar to how Neo could download kung fu in The Matrix). They can achieve this by doing something very specifically unexpected, like suddenly eating a stick of lip salve or professing love for someone they barely know.

This kicks open the door for a manic, 139-minute episode of madcap action. It requires Michelle Yeoh – as losing-at-life launderette owner Evelyn Wang – to gamely toggle between several identities. These include a martial-arts action star not so different from her real-life self; a teppanyaki chef who discovers that her colleague is secretly controlled, Ratatouille-style, by a talking raccoon; and a woman with hotdogs for fingers.

The Daniels juggle silly gags and weird visuals like cackling Dadaists 

The Daniels juggle silly gags and weird visuals like cackling Dadaists. But while the film over-indulges itself a little with an inflated runtime, it never totally comes off its hinges. The heavy concepts (nihilism and existentialism) are lightened by their deft tethering to one family’s relatable tribulations, including tax problems and intergenerational friction. Not to mention the sheer likeability of its core players: Ke Huy Quan (Data from The Goonies) as Evelyn’s sweet husband; Stephanie Hsu as her ironically named daughter Joy; and Yeoh herself, knocking every last scene out of the park. Thanks mainly to her, the Daniels’ movie deserves to be seen by, well, everyone everywhere.

Out now in the US and Australia. In UK cinemas May 13. 

Co-written by JK Rowling and long-time Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves, Fantastic Beasts is the third in a five-movie extension of Warner Bros’ ‘Wizarding World’ franchise. While it’s the weakest, most rambling so far, it also delivers rich, immersive and thrilling moments – and offers loads to love and laugh at.

The first two movies tracked the rise of dark wizard Grindelwald in 1920s NYC and Paris. Now it's 1930s London, Berlin, and, weirdly, Bhutan, as Grindelwald, like his real-world counterpart Hitler, steps up his power grab. 

Despite lots of trademark brilliant inventive flourishes, the core plot stinks. Grindelwald can see the future, so Dumbledore assembles a plucky gang of heroes: Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), his furry duck-billed mole and stick-man accomplices, his bro Theseus (Callum Turner), that sweet New Yoick baker from the first movie, and some random newbies (one of whom is called Bunty). It gives them overlapping secret instructions to ‘confuse’ Grindelwald – and everyone else as well. These involve the gang swooping off to Bhutan with five identical brown suitcases, one of which may or may not contain a cute magical baby deer that can see people’s souls. It’s a ton of fun, but it lacks substance, menace, emotional heft. Often, it lacks sense too.

The cast is ace, especially Redmayne: I hope his career as Wizarding World’s young David Attenborough lasts as long as his muggle counterpart’s has. One hilarious scene has Newt and his uptight big brother escaping from a horde of magical scorpion crabs teaching them to salsa, sideways: British stiff upper lips plus Latin wiggling hips = comic bliss. 

Jude Law, though, is miscast as the young Dumbledore, haunted by his dead sister and a youthful love affair with Grindelwald. He does pretty well despite this, but where was Mark Rylance on casting day? This is essentially the wizard’s coming-out movie and it’s a shame that subtlety and depth are missing, especially given the large YA audience that will see it. There are no secrets about Dumbledore that we don’t already know, and he’s a vacuum at the centre of a story which needed a beating heart.

The gentle humour and truly fantastical beasties will make for an appealing escape for kids and kidults alike

The movie is haunted by the ghosts of the cancelled. As Grindelwald, the genuinely European villain Mads Mikkelsen makes a fantastically sinister replacement for Johnny Depp, dropped following dark behaviour. (More Mads, please!) And fans are speculating wildly that former franchise star Katherine Waterston – seen for about 20 seconds here and hardly at all in the film’s promotion – has been demoted in this instalment after publicly rebuking Rowling for You Know What.

That’s another story, though. And this movie, with its gentle humour, japes, and truly fantastical beasties, is an appealing escape for kids and kidults alike. Even at its weakest, the Potterverse – with its magic, mayhem, and world class ability to create imaginary worlds of epic sweep and a million tiny details – retains its transportive power. Go see this one at the cinema where the big screen and sound will wrap you in a warm, magical duvet of delight.

Out in Australian cinemas Apr 7, in the UK and Hong Kong Apr 8, in Singapore Apr 14 and the US Apr 15.

Bored of identikit blockbusters and flatpack franchises which always seem to end with something smashing something else amid an ocean of CGI? Thank Odin, then, for Robert Eggers and his mad, brilliant, violent, hypnotic, trippy Viking opus. And thank the heroic people who gave him $80 million to make it.

A thrilling revenge movie with one foot in a to-the-last-detail recreation of 9th century Scandinavia and one in a supernatural realm of hulking zombie vikings, magic swords and Björk being a prophet in wheat hat, it’s Conan the Barbarian by way of Klimov and Tarkovsky. It’s artful and full of haunting, elemental visuals – for all the talk of studio notes, this feels like a work of singular vision – but it also gallops along at times, as it follows raging prince Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård, about the size of an Ikea) as he hunts down the uncle (Claes Bang, terrific) who killed his dad and made off with his mum.

The Northman feels Shakespearean (it draws on the same Norse material as ‘Hamlet’), especially when Nicole Kidman’s queen is on screen. She’s clearly having a blast with a character who is never entirely moored to the world she inhabits or any traditional gender role. It leaves Anya Taylor-Joy’s sorceress, Olga, as our sanctuary from all the male bloodletting. The battles are brutal and there are moments when everyone on screen seems to be avenging someone else. It’s all very pre-anger management.

Make it your destiny to see this blood-soaked odyssey along the edge of the world as soon as possible

The casting is immaculate – Willem Dafoe and Ethan Hawke round out an ensemble that fit perfectly in this world – and the language is as rich as you’d expect from the man who wrote The Lighthouse and The Witch. This time Eggers enlists Icelandic poet-novelist Sjón (Lamb) to help riff on the ancient sagas of his homeland: the intractability of destiny is the major theme here (that, and the lopping off of body parts). Make it your destiny to see this blood-soaked odyssey along the edge of the world as soon as possible. 

In UK cinemas Apr 15 and US theaters Apr 22.