The Times - UK (2022-05-27)

8 Friday May 27 2022 | the times

film reviews

Kenneth Branagh, fresh from his

Oscar-winning success story Belfast,

lends his vocal talents (although God

only knows why) to this alarmingly

unsubtle French-Canadian animation.

It’s about a young girl, Georgia (Olivia

Cooke), in early 20th-century New

York who must disguise herself as a

boy to join the ranks of exclusively

male firefighters. It’s

basically Mulan for

firefighters, but with that

film’s themes of female

empowerment spelt out so

crudely, and in so many

lines of dialogue, that the

whole thing quickly flops

into the realm of public

information film or

a cartoon Feminism

for Dummies.

Branagh plays

Georgia’s firefighter

father, Shawn, who

over the course of a visually

uninspiring romp (it has the look

of TV’s Paw Patrol) must track

down a mysterious arsonist.

Meanwhile he learns that girls

are as capable as boys, that girls

should be valued as much as

boys and that girls, above all else,

should be encouraged to follow

their dreams. It’s 2022 and we’re

still doing this? Kevin Maher

Sky Cinema

W

e are about to be

swamped by tributes

for the Platinum

Jubilee but surely

none will capture

the resilience, tedium and absurdity

of the Queen’s 70 years on the

throne as wittily as Roger Michell’s

documentary. The last film the urbane

director of Notting Hill and My Cousin

Rachel made before his death last year

at 65, it’s engaged without being

It’s a right royal knockout

Roger Michell’s

last film is a

playful picture

of our monarch,

says Ed Potton

fawning, nostalgic but rarely

indulgent, and unafraid to have the

odd gentle joke at the royal expense.

Footage of the Queen’s golden barge

at the Diamond Jubilee is intercut

with a clip of Elizabeth Taylor as

Cleopatra; shots of her subjects with a

hive of bees; the section on Andrew,

Harry and Meghan with collapsing

buildings. The film swings between the

surreal — “We’re deeply honoured to

say, ‘Your Majesty, welcome to

Crackerjack!’ ” — and the hilariously

boring, as David Cameron briefs her

about a tractor factory in Basildon.

It’s telling that the editor, Joanna

Crickmay, is credited first at the end,

having rummaged through almost a

century’s worth of film. Some of the

montages are hypnotic — the Queen

saying “My husband and I” over and

over again across the decades, riding

dozens of horses, watching scores of

tribal dances.

As ever, her unguarded moments

are the most fascinating. “Fortunately

my father and I had about the same

shaped head,” she says of wearing the

Tudor crown as Stormzy sings, “Heavy

is the head.. .” on the soundtrack.

Chitchatting with the crew before

recording her Christmas message,

she asks if her outfit is OK, then adds,

“It would be awful if you said no.”

Receiving Lech Walesa, then the new

president of Poland, she confides

that “he’s amazed by the size of

everything”. She never looks happier

than when she is watching her horses

race, waving her arms around like a

schoolgirl.

This was Michell’s last act, being

essentially finished the day before he

died in September. Like many of his

films, it’s insightful, mischievous and

assembled with panache.

In cinemas now; streaming on

Amazon from June 1

The inability of the French screen

siren Juliette Binoche to convince fully

as a careworn cleaning lady is the neat

narrative device at the centre of this

ostensible social drama.

She plays the writer Marianne

Winckler, based on the French

investigative journalist

Florence Aubenas,

who, in

2009, went

undercover in

Normandy’s

zero-hours

economy as

research for

a bestselling

exposé, The

Night Cleaner.

This adaptation is less

“incendiary Ken Loach polemic”

(there are some similarities to his

Sorry We Missed You) and more

“undercover thriller”, as the film draws

its central tension from whether her

true purpose will be discovered by

her new blue-collar buddies.

It’s dramatically satisfying, and

Binoche, above, is such a powerhouse

that she can elevate every scene with

anguished looks and hints of hidden

tears. But as a film of ideas it seems

strangely incomplete. The decision,

for instance, to use the real-life

exploitation of lowest-level workers as

a “fascinating” backdrop for personal

catharsis felt just a bit icky. KM

In cinemas and on Curzon

Home Cinema

On the

Buckingham

Palace balcony

on Coronation

Day, 1953

Georgia the firefighter is

voiced by Olivia Cooke

Fireheart

U, 92min

{{(((

Elizabeth: A

Portrait in Parts

12, 89min

{{{{(

Between Two Worlds

12A, 107min

{{{((

Winner of the special jury prize at

Sundance last year, this Maltese film

stars Jesmark Scicluna as Jes, an

implausibly gorgeous fisherman

caught between tradition and

pragmatism. Well, I say implausibly.

Scicluna is a real-life fisherman

that the debutant director, Alex

Camilleri, cast alongside several

other non-professional actors.

Even so, his brooding hunkiness

feels at odds with an otherwise

restrained piece of social realism,

like a Ken Loach film featuring

Brad Pitt. Scicluna is otherwise

persuasively taciturn and emasculated

as a man facing dwindling catches

from a sea warmed by climate

change.

With a baby to feed, does Jes carry

on in the wooden boat that has been

with his family for generations, or

pay the bills by more dubious means?

Camilleri combines the pathos and

character development of an indie

film with moments of real tension —

not something you can often say

about the world of fishing. EP

In cinemas

Luzzu

15, 95min

{{{((

ALAMY

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Fish and brooding hunkiness in Luzzu