Birthday presents, viewed and reviewed
Jun. 24th, 2020 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestI'd had a bunch of DVDs on my wishlist for quite a while, and received four of them for my birthday. We've watched three (the fourth, Belle, is one I've seen before and enjoyed enough to want to watch again). I don't know how old they are (well, I could check, but I'm too lazy), or whether they were a Big Deal when released or just slipped out and away without fanfare. However, I enjoyed them all, perhaps not least from having no idea at all what they were about before I watched.
So, a handful of brief reviews. I'll put under a cut for those of you who don't care!
Gifted
A very sweet story of an uncle (Chris Evans) who takes care of his dead sister's child, who is a maths prodigy and most appealing. Mother/Grandmother, in the form of Lindsay Duncan, enters their lives and does her best to make sure the maths prodigy gets a better education. Points a quiet finger at the inadequacies of the Law as a means of deciding custody.
Breathe
I was watching this cute period romance and wondering why, where I might have seen it recommended, and how it had come to be on my wishlist, when the devoted husband(Andrew Garfield) contracted polio. There follows a story of struggle, in which the determined wife (Claire Foy), and several staunch friends (eg Tom Hollander playing twin brothers who don't look alike) and an inventor (Hugh Bonneville) make sure that he has a life that is worth living.
The couple's son (Executive Producer), and the widowed wife, were involved with the making of the film, so I am prepared to believe it as a curated truth. Indeed, nothing in it seems implausible. It's also very… British. And, fair warning, it also includes a scene so nightmarish that I gasped aloud and might as easily have screamed when I saw it. Brief, and not violent or anything like that, but horrifying.
Wonder
This is the story of a little boy born with severe facial disfiguring. After many operations and years of being home-educated, he goes to school. It isn't easy. It's also the story of his elder sister, who has grown used to being largely invisible in the family. And their parents (Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson), and their friends.
It is, of course, somewhat sentimental, but overall heartwarming and believable. It is also very middle-class and white-oriented (in that the black characters are not Black, if that makes sense—I get the impression it was colourblind casting).
Defending Jacob Not a DVD, but something on Apple TV which we've watched recently
An intriguing though not at all lighthearted series, shot apparently with a filter that removes all the joyful colours from the world. Stars Chris Evans and Michelle Dockery, who are both excellent, though it's a bit of a shame to see the lovely Lady Mary so Hollywood-thin. They play a married couple; a classmate of their 14-year-old son is murdered in the woods, and their son becomes a suspect.
It's *very* well scripted. Nicely structured, and lots of twisty-turny reality-wasn't-what-you-thought-it-was revelations as the story progresses. All the characters are believable and feel real, and the events that play out make sense (though I still don't see the point in media surrounding a house or courtroom steps, but that's reality at fault, not the show). The kid is not particularly likeable, but very realistically a teenager. Did he do it? Is he innocent? It destroys their lives, and the piano-wire tension in his mother is ratcheted up to breaking point.
I don't think Jacob did the murder, and the thing that convinces me is exactly the thing that convinces his mother, and very probably the jury, that he DID do it: the story he wrote. If I'd beta'd it, there was a detail in there that was so unrealistic that I could only believe he had no idea what it felt like, and that he'd never even carved a joint of meat. But it was clear that the vast majority of people would be convinced that it was reality, not fantasy, being described. Very clever writing.
We actually get the same ambiguity - did he? didn't he? - right to the end. It's not comforting, it's not something that would be fannish catnip at all, but it's a really interesting show.
So, a handful of brief reviews. I'll put under a cut for those of you who don't care!
Gifted
A very sweet story of an uncle (Chris Evans) who takes care of his dead sister's child, who is a maths prodigy and most appealing. Mother/Grandmother, in the form of Lindsay Duncan, enters their lives and does her best to make sure the maths prodigy gets a better education. Points a quiet finger at the inadequacies of the Law as a means of deciding custody.
Breathe
I was watching this cute period romance and wondering why, where I might have seen it recommended, and how it had come to be on my wishlist, when the devoted husband(Andrew Garfield) contracted polio. There follows a story of struggle, in which the determined wife (Claire Foy), and several staunch friends (eg Tom Hollander playing twin brothers who don't look alike) and an inventor (Hugh Bonneville) make sure that he has a life that is worth living.
The couple's son (Executive Producer), and the widowed wife, were involved with the making of the film, so I am prepared to believe it as a curated truth. Indeed, nothing in it seems implausible. It's also very… British. And, fair warning, it also includes a scene so nightmarish that I gasped aloud and might as easily have screamed when I saw it. Brief, and not violent or anything like that, but horrifying.
Wonder
This is the story of a little boy born with severe facial disfiguring. After many operations and years of being home-educated, he goes to school. It isn't easy. It's also the story of his elder sister, who has grown used to being largely invisible in the family. And their parents (Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson), and their friends.
It is, of course, somewhat sentimental, but overall heartwarming and believable. It is also very middle-class and white-oriented (in that the black characters are not Black, if that makes sense—I get the impression it was colourblind casting).
Defending Jacob Not a DVD, but something on Apple TV which we've watched recently
An intriguing though not at all lighthearted series, shot apparently with a filter that removes all the joyful colours from the world. Stars Chris Evans and Michelle Dockery, who are both excellent, though it's a bit of a shame to see the lovely Lady Mary so Hollywood-thin. They play a married couple; a classmate of their 14-year-old son is murdered in the woods, and their son becomes a suspect.
It's *very* well scripted. Nicely structured, and lots of twisty-turny reality-wasn't-what-you-thought-it-was revelations as the story progresses. All the characters are believable and feel real, and the events that play out make sense (though I still don't see the point in media surrounding a house or courtroom steps, but that's reality at fault, not the show). The kid is not particularly likeable, but very realistically a teenager. Did he do it? Is he innocent? It destroys their lives, and the piano-wire tension in his mother is ratcheted up to breaking point.
I don't think Jacob did the murder, and the thing that convinces me is exactly the thing that convinces his mother, and very probably the jury, that he DID do it: the story he wrote. If I'd beta'd it, there was a detail in there that was so unrealistic that I could only believe he had no idea what it felt like, and that he'd never even carved a joint of meat. But it was clear that the vast majority of people would be convinced that it was reality, not fantasy, being described. Very clever writing.
We actually get the same ambiguity - did he? didn't he? - right to the end. It's not comforting, it's not something that would be fannish catnip at all, but it's a really interesting show.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 11:28 am (UTC)I've been wondering about Defending Jacob so thanks for the review of that. I think I'll give it a pass for now.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 02:48 pm (UTC)Defending Jacob is good... but maybe would play better in a happier time! It won't alleviate anybody's stress, that's for sure.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 03:26 pm (UTC)Been catching up on Fred Astaire!
no subject
Date: 2020-06-26 11:03 pm (UTC)But omg, I've seen so many commercials for Defending Jacob over the last month that I *feel* like I've already sat through it! You're definitely making it sound more appealing than the ads have done so far. I like the idea that it ends with a little ambiguity!
no subject
Date: 2020-06-27 12:04 pm (UTC)Breathe was so incredibly painful to watch at times, and as for the grandmother in Gifted. I wanted to give her a shake often.