The Times - UK (2022-04-08)

8 Friday April 8 2022 | the times

film reviews

NICK WALL/FOCUS FEATURES

Chris Pine and Thandiwe

Newton generate all the erotic

heat of a nuclear winter, playing

CIA agents who are left to pick

up the pieces after a hijacking

goes wrong in Vienna. That is,

after they have finished

ravishing each other, in coldly

choreographed scenes that suggest

that intimacy coaches are turning

screen sex into automative pantomime

— “Squeeze two, three, four, aaand

thrust, two, three, four!”

Adapted by Olen Steinhauer

from his novel, the plot is mildly

diverting as the agents try to (cliché

alert) unmask a mole. The director

Janus Metz Pedersen (Borg vs

McEnroe) throws buckets of gloss

at the screen, but his leads barely

convince as humans, let alone

hard-bitten spooks.

In cinemas and on Amazon

Too cold to convince: Thandiwe

Newton and Chris Pine

All the Old Knives

15, 102min

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Julia

12A, 95min

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1

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H

itchcock’s Rope and

Tarantino’s Reservoir

Dogs are the

inspirations for this

riveting single-

location thriller from

Graham Moore, the

writer of The

Imitation Game. The setting is Chicago

in 1956, a mobsters’ menswear store

run by a taciturn tailor called Leonard

(Mark Rylance), a Cockney immigrant

from Savile Row. His dulcet tones

cover much of the film in a fact-filled

This thriller fits like a dream

Mark Rylance

shines as a tailor

embroiled with

Chicago gangsters,

says Kevin Maher

narration that breaks down the

tailoring craft into plans, steps and

processes while teasing out the

allegorical implications of the job. The

ultimate goal of the bespoke tailor —

or “cutter”, a term Leonard prefers —

is to ask: “Who is the man underneath

the suit?”

The film opens with Moore’s camera

roaming around the shop, from front

of house to backroom workshop,

where we meet dim-witted gangster

Richie Boyle (Dylan O’Brien) and his

ruthless sidekick Francis (Johnny

Flynn). Richie flirts with Leonard’s

assistant Mable (Zoey Deutch) while

Francis obsesses about rival mobsters

and rumours that the wider Boyle

“outfit” is harbouring an FBI

informant. Richie toys with Leonard,

whom he has derisively nicknamed

“English” and who is indebted to the

patronage of Richie’s kingpin father,

Roy (Simon Russell Beale). Leonard, in

return, is a portrait of minimalism, a

plethora of small yet significant

gestures (eyes to the floor when

addressing the mobsters) that suggest

a character determined to project a

mien of submission while concealing a

restless interior.

Within minutes Richie is sporting a

freshly inflicted gunshot wound and

holding a secret FBI tape that will

reveal the true identity of the soon-to-

be furiously murdered informant.

Which is where the fun begins.

It is, of course, essentially a play.

Although written by Moore for the

screen, it has all the hallmarks of stage

drama (the entrances, the exits, the

dialogues, the monologues, the real-

time action) and has obvious second-

life potential as reworked theatre. The

pivotal achievement of the film,

however, is that it never once feels

stagey or confined by place. Thanks to

Moore’s dynamic pacing (there are

twists aplenty) and a slew of flawless

turns, what he creates in The Outfit is

instinctive, top-tier cinema.

In cinemas

The superlatives hurled at Julia Child

at the start of this documentary

include “the first rock star chef” and “a

cultural force that changed America”.

It suggests that co-directors Julie

Cohen and Betsy West will deliver a

knockout feminist panegyric like their

RBG (about Ruth Bader Ginsburg).

This one, however, is softer, a

straight and unfussy life story of a

wealthy Californian eccentric who

travelled, learnt about French food,

wrote a book and became a TV star.

There are minor diversions to

American diets in the 1950s and

male-dominated cookery schools, and

seemingly counterintuitive details

about Child, who rejected feminism

and was a self-declared “homemaker”.

Overall, though, this is a warm project

that adores its subject and serves as

cinematic comfort food.

In cinemas

The power of female sexuality in a

male-dominated society seems to be

the subject of this drama from the

Croatian director Antoneta Alamat

Kusijanovic (in her debut) and

executive producer Martin Scorsese.

Set on a remote fishing village on

the Adriatic it depicts the implosion of

a family when a flash foreign investor,

Javier (Cliff Curtis), appears to fall for

both a mother, Nela (Danica Curcic),

and her teenage daughter, Julija

(Gracija Filipovic). The twist is that

the brutish father, Ante (Leon Lucev),

is desperate for Javier’s patronage. A

process of seduction-meets-soliciting

ensues, until dark tensions erupt.

It’s immaculately shot by Kusijanovic

and the cinematographer Hélène

Louvart (The Lost Daughter), yet I wish

Ante had been less of an easy villain.

Still, the final shot is breathtaking.

In cinemas

Mark Rylance,

with Zoey Deutch,

offers a portrait

of minimalism

The Outfit

15, 105min

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Murina

15, 96min

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This is one of the most thrilling

documentaries to be released this, or

any, year. Yet the subject of Daniel

Roher’s Sundance award-winner is

what makes it urgent viewing.

Filmed in secret in 2020-21, it tells

the story of the Russian opposition

leader, Alexei Navalny, his clashes

with the Kremlin and his attempted

assassination in August 2020.

Navalny, on camera throughout,

proves a compelling and sympathetic

protagonist, nowhere more so than

when he’s phoning the agents who

poisoned him and pranking them

into revealing the mechanics of the

Vladimir Putin murder machine.

Roher shoots his material with the

eye of an action director, building

towards Navalny’s chaotic return to

Moscow, into the arms of a merciless

regime. The film throws little extra

light on Putin’s inhumanity but, at a

time of Russophobia, it is a reminder

that, in the words of Roher, “Putin is

not Russia and Russia is not Putin.”

In Curzon cinemas on April 12 for an

event including a Q&A with Roher;

streaming on Curzon Home Cinema

and in selected cinemas from April 15

Navalny

12A, 99min

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A hit last year at the Cannes Film

Festival, this is being marketed as “the

Finnish Before Sunrise”. It’s tougher

than that and more challenging. Seidi

Haarla stars as a Finnish student on a

train journey from Moscow to

Murmansk who is forced to share her

sleeper compartment with a heavy-

drinking, misanthropic Russian

skinhead (Yuriy Boriso). During their

first encounter he verbally abuses and

drunkenly assaults her, and she flees

the compartment in horror. The

challenge for Juho Kuosmanen, the

skilful director and co-writer, is to take

the story in an entirely new direction.

In cinemas; Curzon Home Cinema

Compartment No 6

15, 108min

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