Sight&Sound - 05.2020

REVIEWS

68 | Sight&Sound | May 2020

Reviewed by Hannah McGill

A post-millennial version of those 1950s and 60s

films in which juvenile delinquency was a handy

excuse to pant at bobbysoxers gone bad, Cuck makes

frowny faces about racism, violence and misogyny

primarily in order to have a good roll around in

them. ‘Cuck’ is an abbreviation of ‘cuckold’ – in

right-wing online discourse, a weak, emasculated

man; it also refers to a genre of pornography in

which a man watches his wife have sex with other

men. Loner Ronnie (Zachary Ray Sherman) links

these meanings, first by having some witless rants

he puts on the internet go viral, then by getting

cast in some reasonably well-funded porn movies.

These developments would be preposterous even if

Ronnie were charismatic, his recordings endowed

with originality or dynamism; but as persuasively

embodied by Sherman, he’s such a hapless sack

that the idea of smut-makers or alt-right icons

taking him seriously is bizarre. Ronnie’s politics

are too blunt and hastily sketched to function as

either accurate representation or satire. People

of colour and women crop up solely to enrage

Ronnie; and where the film is visually ambitious,

it’s often in order to add poetry to Ronnie’s sexual

confusion, or to ramp up the hideousness of

his inevitably weird, overbearing mother.

Cuck

USA 2019

Director: Rob Lambert

Certificate 18 115m 2s

In his thirties, Ronnie lives at home with his elderly

mother and posts videos online expressing his

anti-immigrant, anti-feminist and pro-gun thinking.

These attract the attention of alt-right guru Chance

Dalmain. Discovering that porn performer Candy

lives nearby, Ronnie drops by to offer odd jobs, and

is enlisted by Candy and her husband Bill to appear

in her films. Ronnie strikes up an acquaintance

with his hero Dalmain, but when Dalmain finds that

Ronnie has played the subservient role of Candy’s

cuckold, he exposes and shames Ronnie online.

After Candy makes love to Ronnie off-camera, Bill

also turns on him, as does his mother. Ronnie goes

on a shooting rampage, ending by killing himself.

Produced by

Rob Lambert

Joe Varkle

Written by

Rob Lambert

Joe Varkle

Cinematographer

Nick Matthews

Edited by

Mac Nelsen

Production

Designer

Prerna Chawla

Music Performed

and Composed by

Room8:

Nicholas Johns

Ezra Reich

Sound Design

Thomas Ouziel

Costume Designer

Mikael Sharafyan

Stunt Co-ordinator

Henry Layton

©Cuck the Film, LLC

Production

Company

A Rimrock Pictures

production

Executive

Producers

Chris Bender

Jake Weiner

Kunal Kumar

Mary Aldrich

Rick Aldrich

Amy Hair

Cast

Zachary Ray

Sherman

Ronnie Palicki

Sally Kirkland

mother

Timothy V Murphy

Bill

Monique Parent

Candy

Travis Hammer

Chance Dalmain

David Diaan

Abbas

Hugo Armstrong

Larry

In Colour

[1.78:1]

Distributor

Jonny Tull

Credits and Synopsis

Reviewed by Trevor Johnston

Like a fairytale which somehow came true, it’s

little wonder the story of Dream Alliance, the

bargain-basement racehorse, purchased by a

syndicate of ordinary Welsh villagers, which then

somehow won the country’s biggest race, has now

inspired two theatrical features. In 2015 Louise

Osmond’s genial documentary Dark Horse took

a top prize at Sundance and charmed audiences

who saw it, but there was obviously more

commercial potential in such crowd-pleasing

material, hence the arrival of this unashamed

feelgood comedy along class-conscious underdog

lines established by The Full Monty. Affirmation

is never in doubt here, though it springs from

a very believable sense of place and expert

performances, especially from Toni Collette

who manages the accent credibly and brings

real heart to the role of Janet Vokes, the dowdy

yet spirited rural housewife central to the whole

saga. With past achievements including breeding

whippets and prize racing pigeons tantalisingly

lingering in memory, she’s now working days

at a supermarket checkout, nights tending bar

at a working man’s club, supporting her elderly

parents and trying to chivvy her layabout hubby

(Owen Teale, gruffly endearing) off the sofa. Both

their lives need a jolt, and racehorse ownership

proves an unlikely conduit to renewed self-worth.

There are, understandably, pros and cons in

the transition from doc to fictionalisation. The

racing syndicate’s outsider status is vividly self-

evident in the former, though pushed a little

bit harder here, while the earlier incarnation is

definitely more fascinated by the intricacies of the

horse-racing scene, especially when a key injury

requires expensive, risky treatment. There are

moments in Colette’s monologues to her equine

pal, expressing just what success means to her,

where you can feel the drama slightly straining

for scale, perhaps driven, with international

audiences in mind, to over-explain. Still, once

the horses get to the gallop, Dream Horse comes

into its own as Welsh-born director Euros Lyn,

a UK TV stalwart getting a deserved big-screen

break, has available resources to restage the

races rather than just rely on available footage.

Hence the camera puts the viewer on horseback

in the middle of the race to exhilarating effect,

bringing valuable authenticity to a cheery

fictionalisation which occasionally seems just

too determined to show the audience a good time.

Arguably, the serial sing-a-long sequences on a

Welsh theme (from Tom Jones to Manic Street

Preachers) do rather over-egg the pudding, but

it all leads to a jolly final flourish when Vokes

and pals are happily gathered with their screen

counterparts in the end-credits knees-up.

Dream Horse

United Kingdom 2020

Director: Euros Lyn

Certificate PG 113m 11s

Rural Wales. After animal lover Janet Vokes overhears

local tax adviser Howard Davies talking about

racehorse ownership through a syndicate, she

purchases a racing mare at a knockdown price. Sired

by a thoroughbred racer, the resulting foal is at first

kept on her allotment, while Janet encourages Howard

and a group of locals to fund a place for him at stables

with top racehorse trainer Philip Hobbs. Named

Dream Alliance, their unfancied horse places fourth

first time out, then miraculously starts winning races.

In the process it earns thousands in prizes for the

cash-strapped syndicate, which eventually bankrolls

considerable vet fees after a severe ligament injury

during a race. A recovered Dream Alliance wins the

prestigious Welsh Grand National, a testament to

Wendy and the group’s faith and togetherness.

Produced by

Katherine Butler

Tracy O’Riordan

Screenplay

Neil McKay

Based on the life

stories of Jan

Vokes, Brian Vokes

& Howard Davies

Director of

Photography

Erik Alexander Wilson

Edited by

Jamie Pearson

Production Designer

Daniel Taylor

Original Music by/

Orchestrations by

Benjamin Woodgates

Sound Mixer

Stevie Haywood

Costume Designer

Siân Jenkins

Stunt Coordinator

Peter White

©Dream Horse Films

Limited and Channel

Four Television

Corporation

Production

Companies

Warner Bros. Pictures

Films and and

Ingenious Media

present in association

with Ffilm Cymuru

Wales and Warner

Bros. Pictures a

RAW production

Produced by Popara

Films in association

with Rookery

Productions Ltd

Executive Producers

Daniel Battsek

Ollie Madden

Sue Bruce-Smith

Peter Touche

Stephen Dailey

Pauline Burt

Piers Vellacott

Joely Fether

Cast

Toni Collette

Janet Vokes, ‘Jan’

Damian Lewis

Howard Davies

Owen Teale

Brian Vokes

Joanna Page

Angela Davies

Karl Johnson

Kerby

Steffan Rhodri

Gerwyn

Anthony O’Donnell

Maldwyn

Siân Phillips

Maureen

Katherine Jenkins

Clare Balding

themselves

Alan David

Bert

Lynda Barron

Elsie

Rhys Ap William

Kev

Darren Evans

Goose

Di Botcher

Nerys

Brian Doherty

Gordon

Asheq Ahktar

Peter

Nicholas Farrell

Philip Hobbs

Peter Davison

Lord Avery

In Colour

[2.35:1]

Distributor

Warner Bros. Pictures

International (UK)

Turf’s up: Brian Doherty, Toni Collette

Shooting blanks: Zachary Ray Sherman

Credits and Synopsis