Tag Archives: Jude Law

Review: A role he was born to play: Jude Law in DOM HEMINGWAY

11 Friday Apr 2014

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dom hemingwayDom Hemingway begins with an uproarious monologue, an ode to the titular safecracker’s anatomy delivered with profane bravado by an actor clearly relishing his role. After nearly two decades of playing the pretty boy – Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley, Errol Flynn in The Aviator, Alfie’s incorrigible womanizer, etc. – Jude Law comes into his own as a character actor in Richard Shepard’s (The Matador, The Hunting Party) screwball Brit crime comedy delivering a performance that is a bawdy beauty to behold.

With 20 pounds added to his normally lean frame, terrible prosthetic teeth, a misshapen nose, horrible sideburns, a disco era wardrobe, and pugnacious gait, Law looks every inch what Dom Hemingway is supposed to be: a working-class criminal with flamboyant tastes and an even more extravagant personality. After serving 12 years in prison, he is eager to collect his best mate Dickie (the wonderfully deadpan Richard E. Grant) and head to France to collect money owed to him by crime boss Mr. Fontaine (Demian Bichir). He would also like to reconnect with his estranged daughter Evelyn (Emilia Clarke), who equates her father’s imprisonment with abandonment.

Standing in Dom’s way, whether it’s in his interactions with Mr. Fontaine and Evelyn or in his attempt to slide back into a life of crime, is Dom himself. He is an alcoholic with a volcanic temper and absolutely no filter. Even in the most favorable situation, he finds a way to give offense, vulgarities and insults tumbling out of his mouth with zero regard for how they will be received. To be sure, Dom is hilarious. He is one witty, vulgar and weirdly erudite guttersnipe, a kick to watch, but clearly his own worst enemy.

After spending the last several years directing TV shows, such as Criminal Minds and Girls, and making the documentary I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale, writer/director Shepard makes an impressive return. Dom Hemingway does not rise to the level of Brit crime classics like Get Carter or Sexy Beast, but it is a pleasure to watch. Shepard’s hilarious; raunchy dialogue; Lawrence Dorman’s gaudy production design; an ’80s soundtrack; and a wonderful supporting add up to some really big fun. It is Law, though, inhabiting the soul of this goodhearted but completely bonkers not-so-master criminal that makes Dom Hemingway such a treat. This is a role he was born to play. —Pam Grady

Review: Wes Anderson evokes a lost era in the magnificent GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

14 Friday Mar 2014

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Fiennes_RevoloriPastry looms large in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, the product of Mendl’s, the most sublime bakery of all in the kingdom of Zubrowka, its treats packaged in pretty pink boxes. In a way, those baked goods stand as symbols of the whole movie: absolutely gorgeous, irresistible and completely delicious. Set in two opposing eras—the opulent years between the two world wars and the drabness of the Cold War—The Grand Budapest Hotel is Anderson’s most ambitious work to date, evident in his attention to every detail.  It is hilarious, but also a film of great heart as he once more visits the relationship between a father and a son.

Or a faux father and a son, as the case may be.  Like Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore,   Grand Budapest Hotel concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and his new lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori) are not related. Yet, once the older man takes the teenager under his wing, it doesn’t take long for that relationship to develop.  It seems unlikely at the outset. M. Gustave is an excellent concierge, always willing to provide extra service to his guests—particularly the elderly ladies—but he is also  vain, imperious and shallow. If he barely noticed Zero at all, it would be unsurprising. Instead, he responds to the boy’s loyalty, respect and work ethic. By the time, aged Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) dies, earning M. Gustave the enmity of her vicious son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) when she remembers the concierge in her will, M. Gustave and Zero share a solid bond. Nothing can break it, not Dmitri’s machinations, separation or even a fascist invasion.

It is the elderly Zero (F. Murray Abraham), the 1960s-era owner of the Grand Budapest—now long gone to seed—who tells the story to a curious guest, a writer (Jude Law). In the old man’s memories, his youth is almost a fairy tale. Certainly, Zubrowka resembles someplace out of a fable, its luxury exaggerated, the hotel exterior and the mountains surrounding it made of miniatures. At key points, Anderson turns to Fantastic Mr. Fox-style animation. Adam Stockhausen’s (Moonrise Kingdom) production design is exquisite. Anderson’s films are always jewels, but The Grand Budapest Hotel is the most glittering one of them all.

A huge ensemble populates Zubrowka, including Murray, Schwartzman, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Léa Seydoux, Mathieu Amalric, Saorise Ronan and Edward Norton, yet it is an intimate comedy, focused on Fiennes and Revolori. The movie is a gift to Fiennes, an actor whose looks and manner have stood him well in such films as Quiz Show, The English Patient, The End of the Affair and his own recent The Invisible Woman. He was built for period pieces and The Grand Budapest Hotel hits his sweet spot.

Anderson’s love for classic films is evident throughout The Grand Budapest Hotel. Somewhere Ernst Lubitsch is smiling. But in evoking a lost era, Anderson does not pay mere homage, he instead applies his unique humor and sensibility to that time.  What emerges is something magnificent. In fact, it’s pretty grand, this Grand Budapest Hotel. –Pam Grady

360 Degrees of Separation

10 Friday Aug 2012

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360 has so much going for it – on paper, anyway. The Queen/Manchester United scribe Peter Morgan wrote it. City of God/The Constant Gardener director Fernando Meirelles helmed it. Among the stars in a large international ensemble are Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Foster, Moritz Bleibtreu and Jamel Debbouze. Great writer. Great director. Great cast. In theory, this latest variation on La Ronde that spins a web of interconnection between a disparate group of people ought to be a winner. The drama blending elements of romance and suspense is never boring, but it never catches fire either. Too many of the characters are too sketchily drawn, making their stories only intermittently compelling.

A handful of fine performances are what make 360 worthwhile. Law is particularly effective as a businessman at a trade show in Vienna who, finding his attempts to let his hair down in a foreign city thwarted, uses his down time to phone home. His marriage to Weisz looks perfect from the outside, but his voice mails to her acknowledge the gap between them. Russian actor Vladimir Vdovichenkov also makes a memorable turn as a lonely, soulful mobster, stuck in a loveless marriage and harnessed to rude and impossible boss Mark Ivanir. And Ben Foster as a twitchy sex offender trying to stay straight is creepy and poignant at the same time.

The people in 360 are citizens of the world. Their connections are forged on planes, in airports, at hotels, in support groups, on the internet. Borders are porous and a random connection can come from anywhere. The film starts and ends in Vienna and visits Bratislava, London, Paris, Denver and Phoenix. Morgan and Meirelles are trying to make a point about the global nature of humanity and how small the world has become in our age. But they have overreached in trying to balance too many characters and too many situations. What might have resonated is instead too often a bland muddle. – Pam Grady