Alice (Gemma Arterton) has well earned her reputation as the town crank in her small seaside village. So nasty is she that you half expect the townspeople to start shouting, “Burn the witch!” She has that effect, but her surliness does not mean she is not expected to do her part as World War II ravages Europe. Volunteerism is thrust upon her – a woman without an ounce of maternal instinct or selflessness – when Frank (Lucas Bond), a young refugee from the London Blitz, is put in her care. So goes the set-up of Summerland, Olivier award-winning playwright and theater director Jessica Swale’s big-hearted feature writing/directing debut.
“Stories have to come from somewhere,” Alice, a writer, tells Frank. They also have to be going somewhere and where this one is headed is evident from the first meet-mean between a guardian who wants nothing to do her charge and a boy blessed with a sweet disposition and endless charm. An opening scene set 30 years in the future with an aged Alice (Penelope Wilton), still living in the same cottage and pecking away at what looks like the same manual typewriter she’s used since at least the 1940s, only underlines that Summerland is a tale following a predictable path. But plot mechanics scarcely matter in this endearing film. It is the personalities of Alice and Frank, and the endless small details that make up their lives that matter.
The title refers to the pagan idea of an afterlife, a concept Alice introduces to the child. Summerland is part of her research into myths and legends. She also brings Frank to a seaside bluff to look for Fata Morgana, the mirage of the sea. In this case, what she hopes to spy is an image of a nearby castle, seemingly floating in the air. The ideas capture Frank’s imagination, his enthusiasm creating a small chink in Alice’s armor.
Frank also bonds with new schoolmate Edie (Dixie Egerickx), united in shared interests. Separated from his mom in London and his dad off fighting the war, his prickly guardian and new friend are a balm for his loneliness. Frank’s presence in Alice’s house begins to have the same effect on her, even as it reminds her of how she came to be so bitter and isolated in the first place after a breakup with girlfriend Vera (a luminous Gugu Mbatha-Raw). The wound simply never healed.
Shot in Sussex along the region’s glorious white cliffs and gorgeously lenses by cinematographer Laurie Rose, Summerland offers picture-postcard views of the English countryside. But what makes the drama so inviting are the sharp characterizations of Alice and Frank, and the performances. Arterton, a Bond girl in Quantum of Solace and, more recently, Vita Sackville-West in Vita & Virginia, has never been better as she essays a role where thorniness is Alice’s defining trait yet she must also suggest just enough heart to make it believable when Alice’s ice begins to thaw. Bond is terrific as a child thrown into a lion’s den at a time when his life is already unsettled, yet who finds a way to thrive.
Together, the actors’ chemistry is irresistible. Summerland is a resolutely old-fashioned movie that wears its sentiment on its sleeve. That could have been a disaster, but Swale’s confident storytelling never cloys. Instead, she spins a captivating tale, shot through with gruff humor. Alice’s village might reject her; audiences will gladly spend time in her prickly world. –Pam Grady
Summerland is playing in drive-ins, theaters, and digital and cable VOD platforms.
Charles Bukowski would recognize the habitués of Las Vegas dive bar the Roaring 20s. So, would you if you put in any time in a bar that is welcoming enough and has been around long enough to attract a dedicated family of regulars. One of those places that doesn’t call itself a “cocktail lounge” and doesn’t employ mixologists, but a joint for a beer and a shot among strangers who become friends. And for the regulars at the Roaring 20s in Bill and Turner Ross’ shambling, engaging documentary, it is time to spend one last night together there as “last call” really is just that for a watering hole about to close forever.
What if aliens really did walk among us? What if they brought us technology that could solve the world’s thirst for energy without destroying the planet? What if there were government entities whose sole mission, going back decades, was to keep all of this a secret in order to preserve the status quo? What if every American president was in on it, but was prevailed upon to never reveal the truth? What if a gadfly reporter stumbled upon all this? These questions are the starting point for writer/director Christopher Munch’s sometimes intriguing, sometimes silly sci-fi drama The 11th Green.
Bruno Ganz famously played Hitler in Downfall. Now, in one of his final roles in Nicolaus Leytner’s The Tobacconist, he steps into the role of Sigmund Freud, a man who might have been one of the Fuhrer’s victims had he not been to flee to England. Ganz’s delightful performance portraying the warm, soft side of the father of psychoanalysis is a ray of light in this otherwise dark drama set in pre-war Vienna.
An icon plays an icon as Catherine Deneuve steps into the role of a French cinema legend who reunites for a rocky reunion with her screenwriter daughter (Juliette Binoche) in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s elegant drama The Truth. The Japanese master delivers his first film made outside his home country, in French and English – two languages not his own, and loses not a step in an intimate drama that unfolds between the family home and a Paris soundstage.
The situation for gays and lesbians in Chechnya is beyond harrowing. They face arrest, torture, and sometimes execution. If they survive that, they are delivered back to their families with the suggestion that their kin finish the job of killing them. Some have joined the ranks of the world’s disappeared. This special project of strongman president Ramzan Kadyrov “to cleanse the blood” of the country’s LGBTQ population has been under way since 2016 with barely any notice from the rest of the world. Oscar-nominated filmmaker David France’s (How to Survive a Plague) tense, devastating documentary reveals the depth of an ongoing genocide and the efforts of Russian activists to rescue the victims of the atrocities.
Theater geeks everywhere will rejoice and many who would consider themselves impervious to the charms of a Broadway musical will find themselves seduced as Hamilton drops on Disney+ on July 3. Filmed four years while the original cast was still intact, but not intended for a theatrical release until the fall of 2021, with COVID-19 putting pause to the Broadway and road companies, the decision to push the date up by over a year and put it on the streaming service is a welcome one. No doubt there is a business calculation involved. Disney+ can expect to gain X number of subscribers through this shrewd move. But ultimately, who cares about the company’s motivation? Hamilton is here.
To adapt the play to the screen, director Thomas Kail filmed several actual live performances along with performances staged strictly for award-winning cinematographer Declan Quinn’s cameras, a set-up that included a Steadicam. This is not a Hamilton that even its most ardent fans have seen before. Close-ups reveal nuances to the performances lost to distance from the stage and provides a privileged vantage point from which to view Andy Blankenbuehler’s Tony-winning choreography. Jonah Moran’s editing injects a burst of new energy into an already adrenalin-fueled musical. Every performer, from Miranda and Odom to the ensemble, brings their A-game.
In 1934, a 17-year-old girl with skinny legs and a stained dress ascended to the stage of Harlem’s Apollo Theater for Amateur Night. She wanted to be dancer, but as she watched Apollo stars the Edwards Sisters’ agile footwork during the pro part of the evening, she knew she could not follow that. So, she switched gears, opened her mouth to sing and Ella Fitzgerald began her legend. Leslie Woodhead, who began his documentary directing career in 1969 with The Stones in the Park and has made films on everything from the Polish Solidarity movement to the post-9/11 manhunt for Osama bin Laden to Princess Diana, pays glorious homage to the First Lady of Song with this spellbinding documentary.
Cinezine Kane 