The Alienist: Angel of Darkness - a review

A baby is missing. And the mother is trailed and found guilty of the crime. Yet a day after her execution her child is found, dead in a grotesque display with painted eyes. Who did this? It’s up to doctor Kreizler and his team of confidants to solve this heinous crime.

The Alienist is back with a vengeance. This time ‘round our trio of heroes –the intellectual but overtly self-confident Lazlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl), The brave John Moore (Luke Evans) and the passionate world-knowing Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning)- are on the case of what might be an actual Angel of Death operating in New York city. Babies are being stolen from their cribs and later found in a grotesque display reminiscent to memento mori photographs.

After boy prostitutes last year, this season goes straight for the jugular by bringing dead babies to the viewer. The Alienist isn’t your happy-go-lucky, after-a-long-day’s-work, relaxing show; it is cruel, depressing and often just plain nasty. If you wish to believe that the world is populated with friendly, charming people than this isn’t the series for you. In fact, I argue, that benchwatching it might give you a turn of misanthropy.

Still, it’s this darkness the series needs. Taking place at the turn of the century the age of wonder had just begun. And, as we all know from histories like H.H. Holmes and Jack the Ripper this flocking to the cities during this industrial revolution caused quite a bit of bloodshed. Blatant racism, classism, sexism, conservatism, gang violence, and all kinds of international power-struggles occurred on a daily basis as people tries to carve their place in the world. And when there’s struggle there will be blood.

A crime of classes

As always it is the class-struggle that is at the dark heart of The Alienist. Last season the prostitutes were victims of a crime nobody bothered to actively investigate. Moreover, the police-force prided itself in its corruption, reigning over the city like a gang in its own right. This season it are the women who gave their innocence to the high and mighty and got their babies stolen from them who are at the core of this sordid tale.

Yes the murderer is most likely a woman, that much is clear from the very first episode. And even the motive behind it get clear rather quickly. All in all one should have all the answers of the who and why by the end of the third episode. Which is just as well since ... well let’s not go into any further spoilers shall we.

In fact it is the female class struggle in all its facets that runs like a thread throughout this season. The Alienists highlights them every chance it gets: what’s it like to be a bastard daughter? What’s it like to be female and African-American? What it like if one doesn’t want to fulfil the demands society require from a women? And many more.

Last season was all about males and the misfortunes of the downtrodden and the corruption that kept them down. This season is about female empowerment (and the corruption that keeps it down). And as a critical thematic it works marvellously over the eight episodes even though this does mean that the male protagonists Kreizler has to give way to Dakota Fanning’s Sara Howard.

“Shame on you!”

That little phrase above, and the action she took when she said it, to me, defined Dakota Fanning’s Sara Howard this season. With a more prominent part this year than she had last year she’s actively  exploring all the facets of her character. She gets to be ‘awesome’, ‘angry’, ‘clever’, ‘romantic’ and even ‘mistaken’. She’s got a lot to do and in the actress’s capable hands it is she who takes the viewer down the dark path of The Alienist: Angel of Death rather than Brühl’s Kreizler.

The increase of her role is elementary from her very first scene in which she is racing down the streets trying to get to the detective-agency she started.

Which is mainly employed by women who think feminism is a fad.

She is a women who carves her own path in life whilst the rest of the world around her, even those of her own gender, revolt against this idea. Putting this detective character in the midst of a crime in which all the suspects and witnesses are women – and obviously a female investigating gets far more answers from women than the men surrounding her- is a recipe for character-fireworks which The Alienist delivers.

If you know your mystery novels you know that the biggest bad first introduced often doesn’t turn out to be the main villain after all. In this season of The Alienist the show offers, right out the gate, Roose Bolton of Game of Thrones-fame (“The Lannisters send their regards”) Michael McElhatton as the villainous head of the Lying In Hospital a clinic for the desolate. Of course Dr. Markoe isn’t the big bad; but his arrogant smirking certainly makes one highly enjoyable strand in the larger weaving of the mystery.

As always it is a bit tricky to put a strong female persona on the screen because –due to the era we are no living in, in which feminism is an important topic- it might feel forced. Moreso when you actually tell a story set in the time when female-rights activism began.

Still Fanning’s character (-arch) doesn’t feel forced at all. For her character it is only logical that she agrees with the feminist movement. The fact that she isn’t that interested in the frivolities of male-companionship or whether a man is more important than a female all derive from her persona. As such whenever these questions are raised it actually enriches her character instead of feeling like a show-stopper.

The fact that Fanning also plays her character Howard contained but never shy of exposing her true feelings makes the character even more interesting as there’s a duality there. A free spirit constantly trying to break out but also, constantly, held back by both herself as society.

Brühl’s Kreizler, then, for the earlier episodes, plays against Fanning’s Howard. He is the man who is always right. In fact this character is so convinced of his own right that he fails to see the people around him. It’s not necessarily about gender to him but in the whole context of this season it does add up. When his friend offers him a safe way of questioning a suspect without getting lost in a shouting match he initially agrees only to betray his friend later on. When Sara Howard warns him about this new interest of his about hypnosis he brushes her away because he read the studies, he knows what he’s talking about; oblivious to other reasons people might oppose him with.

This narrow straight line he walks makes him an anchor for the story but it also makes the namegiver of the show exactly that power of not willing to listen to reason which the feminist movement was rallying against. Thankfully, when the investigation gets truly underway Kreizler changes, willing to accept his shortcomings and broaden the path he is on.

Turning to the third lead of the show Evan’s John Moore. He, finally, has shredded his philandering
ways and is currently set on a steady life with one of William Randolph Hearst’s (bastard) goddaughters. His moral compass has been upped this season. His knack for getting himself into trouble, however, has also increased. Moore is the puppy who can seek out evil but lacks the bite to defend himself.

Kreizler, in this comparison is the bird watching from above staying well away from danger. Still, Evans dashing around in the mud and exposing the deep dark secrets the people of old New York wish to keep hidden paint a pretty picture. The viewer needs somebody to enter the dark foreboding room to keep the momentum of the story going and Moore fits that bill perfectly. And, even though I sound a tad too dismissive of the character, his arch does offer an interesting view on the male dilemmas in light of so-called feminine topics like marriage and babies. Not to mention that this character is the natural balance between Kreizler and Howard who at the start of the season are almost on opposite sides of the good spectrum.

Ending with the former-Chief of Police Byrnes. First of all, I’m a big fan of Ted Levine. This is one of those actors who likes to play both sides of the medallion. His first breakthrough performance was of course that of Buffalo Bill but then, years later, he happily played the charming chief of police in Monk (2002). His role in The Alienist is rather a combination of the two, a chief of police with the dark determined heart of Buffalo Bill and he plays him masterfully. Each and every moment he is on screen you know that he’s up to no good.

But he does get something to do this season. His character Byrnes is not all vile and corrupt; when injustice is blatant he will act. Even if it will always be out for his own interests first.

A dark city that never sleeps

With a healthier budget The Alienist season 2 showcases the dark and filthy streets of 1896 New York every chance it gets. It tries to toy around with this by shifting the focus between the upper class locations and the downtrodden class to highlight the contrast; but in the end the show knows fully well that it are the dark corridors and murky walls the viewer wants to visit.

As always the set design looks marvellous. Last season often took place at one very well dresses street-set. This season has all kinds of tricks up its sleeve. There is a lavish harbour set, several streets (with the clever inclusion of trains in the background) And every once and again a beautiful CGI bird-eye shot of the city.

I liked the little nod that the torch of the statue of liberty was lit at the time.

It’s acting and visuals that are the strong suits in The Alienist’s ‘dead man’s hand’. But, like last season, the plotting leaves a bit to be desired.

Plotting away to solve the crime

My biggest critique on season one (apart from the fact that it was sometimes a bit too depressing for my
taste) were the easy storytelling-tricks. I don’t like people getting saved in the nick of time. I don’t like coincidental coincidences. I don’t like a villain automatically brandishing a knife the second he meets one of our heroes. Not to mention characters dying because either they weren’t paying attention or the plot put them unarmed in a dangerous situation in which they were seriously outclassed. I consider these tropes cheap and outdated. There are so many other ways to get through a scene without relying on the ‘old faithful’.

Why not –I’m referring to episode two here- have the villain start of the conversation politely and only during it become more and more dangerous. And then, instead of the just-in-time save, have our hero talk his way out of it. It’s a lot less eye rolling than what I saw on screen.

So yes, The Alienist, is, once again, littered with easy storytelling techniques that keep it from being great on a narrative, scene-to-scene, level. However, the grander mystery of the crime is a lot more elaborate and throughout than it was last season (I don’t think we ever got a good look of the culprit back then) which leaves me with a final compliment to the murderer of the story. This character -which I can’t name in this spoiler-free review- gets to showcase all the pain and trouble that caused the troubled mind and does so quite excellently. Which is exactly what I believe The Alienist should be about: reading the mind of the murderer and then, let the murderer speak to see if Kreizler and his comrades were right.

Conclusion

The second season of The Alienist is quite the improvement to an already stellar first season. By using feminism or womanhood as a thematic it allows itself to highlight all the problems women endured at the turn of the century (and are still enduring to this day mind you). But also by letting the murderer be such an important part of the story it earns its title as it explores the recesses of the disturbed human psyche. And, if that’s not enough, the show is even more visually lavishing  than it was before and acted out impeccably. I just hope that next season the murder-mystery could stop killing children, the world is depressing enough as it is.

Becky - A review

Ruthless Neo-Nazi’s escape from prison and end up holding a family hostage whilst looking for a MacGuffin. But, too bad, those silly Nazi’s hadn’t thought about the relentlessly vindictive daughter of the household: Becky.

Becky is one of those movies in which style and set-pieces trump narrative. So visually the Becky character is well developed in a bumblebee-sweeter and a brightly orange chipmunk hat. It’s an pleasantly weird, fantasy nay, superhero look that are somewhat rather popular with movies dealing with brave teenaged girls (I’d bet Becky and Barbara from I kill Giants (2017) could be the best of friends). The same goes for the villain of the piece as (cast against type) Kevin James playing a patriarch Nazi. He already has a rather distinctive look with his bald head, tattoos and bright orange jersey and even gets to look even more bad-ass as the movie progresses.

All this could pretty much be expected from the opening title alone. Its brightly coloured, flashing of the name Becky promises some sort of superhero named Becky and in this visual sense the audience is rewarded.

Unfortunately the story of the movie isn’t even close to that of a superhero. There is no arch for Becky, and the MacGuffin stays a MacGuffin (probably to keep an opening for a sequel). Basically all you need to know about Becky is said halfway through; if she’s nice she’s adorable, but if she’s mad...

And that’s about all the arch the viewer gets for her whilst the movie goes out of its way to show one elaborate death scene after another – and none of them are very logical.

It’s a shame really because the killer-kids-home-alone-inversion had already been done before so marvellously impressively in The Aggression Scale (2012).

Also a movie that started with seven or so producers logos.

Usually this is a bad sign (especially if you don’t recognize any of them) but not for The Aggression Scale.

In this particular case it allowed the movie to be its own movie and up the violence and the bloodshed to insane levels.

In that movie too there was no arch for the main ‘killer-kid’ (the kid being a sociopath and all) but there was for almost every other character on screen (especially the sister).

And every elaborate kill -even if they were at times slightly too creative- never went overboard with ‘insane’ ways to kill a person.

I would be lying if Becky doesn’t try to, at least, put some kind of character arch into the movie but the way it is handled, it just doesn’t work -I'm talking about the (most impressive) side-character here.

When I saw where this particular arch was going I realized that Becky is filled to the brim with ‘against type’ casting.

And, maybe, too much isn’t always a good thing.

It’s clear that Becky tries to breath the same air as The Aggression Scale and when it comes to brutality it brings it. It’s just that Becky puts too much fate on the visuals instead of the narrative. Which is especially strange since the cast of the movie is so strong. Kevin James is a very capable actor who knows his craft. Lulu Wilson has, pretty much, grown up playing in the darker stories of movies and then there’s even the giant Robert Maillet who has got villainy-roles down to a key.

One additional nitpick though, Kevin James isn't a very tall man. So when his character has to intimidate ‘the giant’ it relies heavily on charisma and screen-presence. James has that, mind you, but not enough for me to buy this particular scene. Truth be told the script got in the way a bit as well. But the idea behind it is sound and its execution the best it could be.

In the end –as those punky credits roll which will always remind me of All the boys love Mandy Lane (2006), since I saw it there first- Becky is close to being the unofficial sequel to The aggression scale but never quite gets there. The focus is too much on visually making Becky a superhero that the movie forgets to tell an actual interesting story.

So let’s just call Becky an origins story; but in the sequel there’d better be more that just visual flair as the movie hops from one unbelievably, overtly elaborate deathscene to the next.

Forgotten movies: Cheaters (2000)

'Cultural economy’; basically this term means that a company sells you, as an added value to their product, an image to aspire to. You drink Pepsi™ you are sporty and cool. You drink Coca Cola™ you are a family person who loves Christmas.

This method of image building has been around since modern economy. Nintendo™ is for the kids. Sega™ was for the older siblings. Nowadays it isn’t important whether a product does what it needs to do but rather that it applies to the image-based standard a consumer wants it to be.

But ‘Cultural economy’ doesn’t end with products on the shelf of a local supermarket. I argue (and many with me) that I also see this image building pop up whenever a country presents itself.  Each Olympics, Eurovision, World Football Tournament countries present themselves as the way they wish to be perceived (which, in football is annoying since hooligans tend to get in the way).

 The two biggest international movie-producing countries in the world, The United States and The United Kingdom, have done this for ages in their movies. They sold themselves as either ‘the land of the free who knows how to take care of itself’, or ‘the great nation that brought forth the world’.

One could very well argue that the main reason why refugees flock to these countries is because they ‘look so good’ on the silver screen.

But, and here is the catch I wish to focus upon in this article, this does automatically imply that people abroad will put this ‘image’ to scrutinous investigation.

Take the United States per example. Throughout the cold war the USA has bombarded the rest of the western world with movie after movie featuring their country as the ‘last line of defence against’ Sovjets, Aliens, Giant Ants, and so-on and so-on.

The best example is, of course, Independence Day (1996), made by a German.

But by posing itself as ‘the best country ever!’ it automatically causes the critical minds of the rest of the world to wonder if that is truly the case.

Now, the United States of America isn’t the best country in the world; not by a long shot. But it is the image the media-industry keeps on selling to the world. 

So, of course, small time moviemakers wish to highlight the cracks in this image. One of those movies is Cheaters (2000).

Cheaters is a great movie because it shows what eons of movie-industry-cultural-economy had told the rest of the world before: In the United States, if you are good at sports you get a free ride to college. If you are bookwise then you have a problem. Or, if you look at it another way, if you are rich, life is easy, if you are poor, life will only get harder.

The examples are numerous in the movies that came before Cheaters; In A Wonderful life (1946) the main character got his college break by being great at football. The same goes for Forrest Gump (1994). The whole plot of Mr. Destiny (1995) hinges on the fact that the main character didn’t make it in sports. The USA loves sports and loves winners. And not just any winners, but Mohammed Ali ‘one guy takes all’ winners.

But anybody with half a mind knows that a sole reliance on continues winners is a bad idea. Everybody fails once in a while. So why not showcase the underdog and, whilst you are at it, highlight what is wrong with, in the case of Cheaters, the United States educational system.

Cheaters

A low-end public-school tries its hand at the prestigious academic decathlon cup. A contest which has been consistently won by the same school for ten years running. Then, by chance, they happen upon the questions for the final round of the competition. Will they cheat? Of course they will! It’s the only way they can, finally, escape mediocrity in an society fixated on elitism.

Cheaters is a pretty straightforward story. Just reading the title alone will give a pretty good vibe about
how the movie is going to play out: some kids cheat, the truth comes out, they deny it, they come clean.

But there is far more to this story than just that. Because Cheaters is all about equality. The (cultural economy) image the United States sells to the world and its own residents of ‘all men are created equal’ is proven wrong in this movie. The kids at this particular high-school don’t get an equal chance to win the main prize than that other school who keeps on winning the same cup year after year (and even houses the competition committee). So they cheat to, for once, feel like winners.

It’s not ‘levelling the playing field’ but rather creating a precedent for others to aspire to (even though this social-aspect is furthest from the minds of the characters, they just want to win ‘for once’).

It is this sense of cultural and/or economical inequality that runs like a red thread throughout this movie. This is the motivation for their cheating. But, as any good movie should, this pure, understandable motivation becomes muddled by layers as the teens keep on denying their cheating and defying (quite brutally) those who want to know the truth of the matter.

When a story is simple the writing should be great. After all, there is no need for extensive elaborate exposition. The audience knows what’s going on and they want to see what happens next. Insert some great lines. Cheaters is mild when it comes to great lines. There are some gems, but, overall, the movie shows what the audience needs to see to get the gist.

Sure, there’s Jeff Daniel’s Dr. Gerard Plecki who is furious are the (United States) system as it killed his immigrant father for believing in the ‘American dream’. But these scenes hardly bring any firework to the table. The audience understands the character better, absolutely, but it doesn’t  make the main story better.

Instead it is the willingness of the students to cheat that speaks volumes. The audience never learns why all of them cheat (we get some insights here and there, but never much) and this is refreshing. The audience gets to fill in the blanks based on almost a hundred years of United States cultural economy.

The acting supports this notion. Each and every teen in this movie knows their own backstory. We –the audience- don’t get to see it but they know and act accordingly. Some of the teenagers who were nice before become vile, whilst others become more understandable. As the audience already reasoned how the whole movie was going to play out from the get-go it layers the performances.

In the end Cheaters is a full-out attack on the American educational system and its strange preoccupancy of focussing on ’winners’ over actually teaching kids. Since this movie came out in the year 2000 nothing really changed. But, who knows, maybe with a cheat here-and-there things will come around.

Gretel and Hansel – A review

Hansel, and his older sister Gretel, are on the road to better things. Their mother casted them out. So they have to fend for themselves. On the road they stumble upon a cabin in the woods with a nice old lady happy to take them in. But there is something quite sinister at play here as Gretel soon finds out.

My first experience with Hansel and Gretel in a movie-form was with the Olsen twins. They’d grown up and after Full house and made a series of their own movies. One of the first was an adaptation of the famous Grimm fairytale. One of the twins was Gretel and the other one played Hansel.

Things have somewhat come full circle now with this horror rendition. Here we have Sophia Lillis who after her career defining turn in both chapters of IT (2019) took this movie as one of her first new projects.

As is usual by now, teen actresses apparently have to do two or three horror movies. Nobody really knows why but after Chloe Grace Moretz, Joey King, Lulu Wilson and Sterling Jernis so does Lillis. Scream queens are getting younger. 

Style over story

Gretel and Hansel isn’t truly an acting piece. Every bit of acting is very subdued. It is the style and the
mood that takes the forefront here. And yes every shot in this movie paints quite the picture.

Just the brown-yellow tint whenever Gretel is in the ‘house’; works marvels. Yellow is the colour of danger here as she could’ve seen in the yellow windows as she and her brother approached the cabin.

Then there are all the lines that work as a repoussoir pushing the foreground back as it were. Making the image translucent even though it is there. The wonderful pyramid shape of the cabin which, like any other pyramid, is a morgue. Triangles rule in this movie as they entice the viewer further into the occult.

Not to mention the set of the big final which is, basically, a white room. Stylish, unbothered by the bloodshed that came before, clean. Of course this ‘clean’ room gets a healthy dosage of blood.

Gory fairytales

Like previous horror-versions of famous fairytales I would argue that Gretel and Hansel would sit rather comfortably next to The company of wolves (1984) and Snow White: a tale of Terror (1997). They all breathe this sense of a time long past where fantasy and terror were very real upon this green earth, and often interlinked with shackles.

I’ve said it before one this blog and I might have to put this disclaimer up somewhere: my stomach for gore and horror is quite strong nowadays. I’m not a big fan of (unnecessary) gore but I’m not really bothered by it either. So unless I missed something I can tell you that this version of Gretel and Hansel is rather tame when it comes to the whole cannibal aspect of the fairytale. There is a severed arm her and there and the obligatory bucket of guts but that’s about it. The whole eating/song scene in The Lord of the Rings: The return of the king (2003) is a lot more disturbing (a scene that would’ve fit perfectly in this movie).

In the end most of the critique Gretel and Hansel got from reviewers is that the style over substance doesn’t truly work. Maybe the criticasters are right. At least, I can tell, for a movie trying to appeal to a mayor audience it started lacking a bit from the halfway mark on.

But as the movie to complete the dark fairytale trilogy that began with The company of wolves; I think Gretel and Hansel works rather nicely. Now we have the three great tales of Grimm covered in horror.

The invisible man (2020) – a review.

A young woman –Cecilia- finally manages to escape the clutches of her abusive husband Adrian. Soon after this he commits suicide. Yet, something tells Cecilia that her husband isn’t dead. That he is using his skill in the field of optical-technology to torment her once again. Is Cecilia seeing things or is her husband truly the invisible man.

The invisible man is what a good remake should be. It takes an old movie (the 1933 version with the same title) and updates it to current times.

Visually, by updating the original English countryside inn and barn in favour of a massive neo-modernist beach house (with lots of glass). Plotwise; technology instead of magical potions.
And, thematically; this version’s main theme is abuse, because that is a prominent feature in our current collective (western) landscape.

The movie ended the way it was always supposed to end. The script was pretty straightforward in that regard. The title of the movie is The invisible MAN. It’s all about masculine power play over a woman and her changing from victim to survivor. So of course, to highlight the end of her transition the movie needed The invisible WOMAN to end it all.

Where so many remakes fail, The invisible man succeeds. The reason for this is quite simple really: the remake only truly needed to tick two boxes of the original: there has to be a man and he has to be invisible. The rest the moviemakers could ‘fill in’ as they saw fit.

It is interesting to note here that every invisible man movie sofar (it haven’t been that many to be honest) rather uses the current technological advance of the day to make said man invisible. Memoirs of the invisible man (1992) used gamma rays; Hollow man (2000) used some sort of chemo therapy. And so this one uses sleek and stylish technology straight from the Apple factory.

It’s quite another story if you are remaking (for instance) Papillion (1971, 2017). Then the movies have to address a whole array of elements. There’s not a lot of freedom.

The invisible movie genre

When it comes to invisible men in movies there are various personal traits you can hand the bloke. Rodney Skinner in The league of extraordinary gentlemen (2003) was a thief and a spy. A handy character to have around in a movie that deals with a world encompassing conspiracy.

But if the invisible man is the main character of a movie those personal traits become part of the thematic of the movie and/or character. For instance:

I think dear Violet Incredible is the only (well known) female in cinema who gets to turn invisible.

Her original thematic for her powers were shyness.

Memoirs of an invisible man; a regular bloke who took life for granted and now wants his normality back. Il ragazzo invisibile (2014); becoming an adult. Hollow man; a peeping tom and a control freak. And, now, The invisible man; An narcissist.

So, as you can see, invisibility grants the movie a variety of thematics to play with. Just like the good ol’ vampire movies love to play with thematics surrounding youth, religion, and, of course, lust and sex.

But in any archetype-story one thematic is always the most prominent. For the vampire-stories it death. And, I argue, invisible movies always use the thematic: sneaky. Doing, or being somewhere that isn’t allowed. Like Harry Potter (2001) exploring the library at night.

With this comes the conclusion that an invisible man movie works best if the man in question is a villain. Because a villain is far more comfortable doing something sneaky than a hero. A villain might keep it up the entire movie whilst the hero constantly needs new reasons to turn invisible again (like Dexter Riley’s actions in Now you see him now you don’t (1972)).

The invisible villain

Interesting about The invisible man –I found- is that the main villain doesn’t appear on the screen for more than three minutes or so and that is predominantly near the end. This hauls back to the original The invisible man (1933) in which Claude Rains was already invisible to begin with. You never meet him face to face as it were so the man stays a mystery, there’s no connection.

Paul Verhoeven’s Hollow man took a different approach. This movie took quite a bit of time to get to know the main character Sebastian Caine. And, even though, Kevin Bacon pretty much played him like an unlikable smuck from the get go you do bond with this character; as an audience will always bond with the person who is on screen most of the time no matter whether they are villains or heroes. No matter what they do (e.g. That gut wrenching scene in Once upon a time in America (1984)).

This does, however, create a possible problem for The invisible man by the way that it is shot.

The villain invisible

You never truly see the danger that Adrien is. All you get from the movie to accept this statement is his brute smashing of the car window at the start of the movie

A very clever story technique that shows how uninhibited and violent a character is.

and Cecelia’s fear of him. This concept works a charm the minute you make Cecelia an unreliable character.

However, in The invisible man she stays rather reliable throughout. The viewer gets to see exactly how she is constantly being framed by the invisible man, there is no ambiguity on whether or not she is telling the truth. So, ergo, her stories about the danger that is Adrien has to be the truth as well.

I, for one, would be rather intrigued the see what would happen if Whannell took the Rear Window-route (1954). Constantly questioning if the protagonist is right; or even right in the head like in Twelve Monkeys (1995).

Which would mean: leaving all the shenanigans of the invisible man out. And only in the end spring the revelation that we are talking about a literal invisible man here instead of a figurative invisible man working behind the scenes or from the protagonist’s damaged psyche.

The director

Leigh Whannell is quickly growing as a director. I’m rather impressed with what he managed in The invisible man. Both the acting performances he managed to capture as the way he uses the camera (the opening shot alone is wonderful).

Who would’ve thought ten years ago that the golden child James Wan would end up making enjoyable but not very memorable blockbuster movies like Aquaman (2018) and The fast and the furious 7 (2015). And that Whannell would take over his friend's reigns and craft smart little thrillers.

But then again; Whannell has a remake of Escape from New York lined up and Wan is going back to his roots with a thriller called Malignant.

The invisible script

As always in Whannell’s screenplays the important plotdevices get introduced early and in quick succession. Without spoiling too much: the knife, the fire extinguisher and the hidden compartment amongst other things are thrown in early and openly without any pretence of hiding it for the audience.
So this little fire in the kitchen-scene servers three purposes: the introduction of the knife, the introduction of the fire-extinguisher and establishing a solid relationship between the two females.

That’s what I always liked about Whannell’s screenplays, they are clear. Every scene has a function and he hardly every mucks it up with scenes leading nowhere.

I do, however, blame him sometimes for ignoring the obvious. In the case of The invisible man the script tends to make the criminal too smart, too much in control. Which, at certain times, makes you wonder how this woman ever managed to outsmart him like that.

The acting invisible

One of the famous things to say about an actor or actress is to say something like: ‘She doesn’t appear to be acting at all.’ I never truly agreed with this statement, but I understand the compliment behind it.

In The invisible man it is Elizabeth Moss who is front and centre throughout. Because of the lack of a visual threat the entire movie is on her shoulders. She has to act and react to things ‘not there’ and the audience has to take her ‘word’ on this.

In short Moss has a deliciously juicy part that allows her to showcase her talent as an actress. And she does quite brilliantly. She never truly goes over the top (which would be easy to do in such a fantastical tale) and manages to find a balance between a whole array of character-emotions shifting between empowered, victim, paranoid and just plain old fightin’ mad.

True some of the abovementioned choices of 'seeing what the invisible man does' made during this movie rather weaken her performance in the whole. But that certainly doesn’t diminish the fact that she gives quite the performance.

More invisible men

Originally it was the intention to make a Dark universe much like the Marvel and DC universes only this time featuring the monsters from yesteryears. This dream however imploded the minute Dracula: Untold (2014) and The Mummy (2017) failed at the box office.

But maybe that was a blessing in disguise. Because movies like The invisible man work on a small scale. Let vampires and lycanthropes have their all out war in various massive blockbuster movies and let the invisible man and Dr. Jekylle and Mr. Hyde operate on a smaller scale.

Free from the Dark universe, Whannell managed to craft a small thriller with a fantastical concept at its core. And, again, free from the Dark universe this movie has found its audience.

It is interesting to see once again that a good movie doesn’t come on order. It comes from people given the freedom to create something that they think is right.

The invisible man is a well crafted thriller that fits perfectly in our current era in which female rights and technological advances are hot topics.

Who said a ninety year old story is dead? It just takes a new perspective to see what is possible. To see what was once invisible.

The Good Liar – a review

An elderly conman Roy (Ian McKellen) finds that his latest mark Betty (Helen Mirren) is quite rich. This makes the evil entrepreneur in him more than willing to give it his best to unburden her of all that wealth.

Let me start by saying that the poster is actually rather well chosen, on two fronts. First it evokes the feeling of a classical detective the like of Deceived (1992), The Hand that rocks the Cradle (1992) and Single White Female (1992).

Those famous (often 90s) thrillers in which the single white female has to smarten up fast to resist the evil male intruder in her life.

Then there are the colours of black and white. At first glance this is the clear distinction between right and wrong, the villain and the victim.

But, after seeing the movie I have to admit that it also highlights the big problem of the story and thus, as a result, the movie as a whole. Strangely enough I’m accusing The Good Liar of being dishonest to its audience.

The fighting chance in a detective story

S.S. van Dine famously wrote his ‘twenty rules for writing detective stories’ in 1928. The phrase ‘The butler did it’ –I believe- derives from this list as (as rule 11) the writer clearly exclaims his disdain for the notion of someone ‘common’ committing bloody murder.

But, nevertheless, taken with a grain of salt these ‘twenty rules’ still work as a blueprint to this day and age. And one thing is almost hammered home in Dine’s list (as rules 1, 5, 8, 9 and 15 stipulate): the reader should have a sporting chance to solve the crime.

To take Midsomer Murders (or any other crime-of-the-week TV-show for that matter) for example. This show scores high on this list. Every clue is a plain sight and it up to the audience to pay close attention.

But it is human nature to experiment. It is human nature to do something different from time to time. Sometimes even to try to reinvent the wheel as it were.

So throughout crime-fiction history there have been stories in which the ‘who’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ The Alienist (2018) left out the Who until the very last episode. Sherlock’s (2012) death defying leap in The Reichenbach fall (the How) was famously left without a proper explanation. And The Good Liar, I argue, is guilty of leaving out the Why.
weren’t there for the audience to pick up upon. In televised fiction last year’s

Anybody can, at least, sense that there is something amiss between the characters; that neither of them are very truthful. You can feel it in the picture, in every frame. You’ll probably even know how it will all go down and you’ll be right. But still, in the end, you are left empty handed because you didn’t have any access to the smallest morsel of information pertaining to the question: Why.

This wilful choice (derived from the original book by Nicholas Searle I assume) makes The Good Liar and uneven viewing. The movie seduces you, the viewer, to take part in the mystery of solving what is going. Like a peacock spreading its feathers it uses tried and tested cinematic techniques of informing the audience of danger lurking, just letting the camera linger on a character’s face in a room. But at the same time denies the audience to see all of said ‘peacock’. So, in short, what you want, you don’t get.

Genre fatigue

One could easily blame the detective genre for this. After years and years of detective novels, TV-shows and movies (most recently the brilliant Knifes Out (2019)) which were all following Dine’s twenty rules to the tee audiences get alienated when a story tries something different.

Expectations restricting imagination as it were.

But, one could also make the argument, why change a winning formula? Would The Good Liar really have suffered that greatly if the 'why' was brought to the forefront a little earlier than the big finale?

I don’t think so. I actually believe it would make the story work a whole lot better.

At least it would have prepared/guided me a bit for the emotional somersault the Roy character goes through in the finale.

Audiences will always identify with a main character. Even if he or she is a villain. No matter how vile and despicable (often) he is.

But the trick here is to do vilify the villain slowly (like Ian McKellen’s character in Apt Pupil (1998)). Not to, suddenly, spring a whole new level of villainy on our evil protagonist out of the blue.

Basically the finale to The Good Liar was the textbook example of the ‘introduction of the big bad’. In any (action)movie the main bad guy’s introduction is accompanied with him doing something dastardly. Done early the movie can build from that.

But if you’ve already got the audience invested in a character and then, after a full hour and a half, spring a disturbingly dastardly deed on the character without leading into it it alienates the character and the audience is left in limbo.

The only movie this worked in, I think, is Heat (1995) with Tom Sizemore’s character. But he was a side-character, not one of the protagonists. The audience hardly knew the guy so his ‘big dastardly deed’ in the end was a possibility that could come from this character.

Maybe a bit more predictable since any weathered moviegoer/ crime fiction enthusiast now has the 'Why' handed to complete the mental jigsaw.

But, then again, this would also shift focus from the core mystery to the many other wonders that The Good Liar has to offer its audience.

Visually a detective story

The visual flair of The Good Liar is one of the main reasons to see this movie (apart from the obvious two reasons I’ll mention below). Shot in London and Berlin the camera makes good use of showing the beauty of the scenery. It truly is a bit of a tourist folder (complete with British upper-class fashion). But there’s much more. Little shots here and there that elevate the tale and truly making it a colourful feast for the eye.

There’s a brilliant little strip-club scene that is a deliciously lit set. The setting makes all the character on screen grubby and morally grey. The camera, then underlines this with quick successions of shots, just lingering long enough to capture a thoughtful silence or two.

Every set is like this; well chosen and fitting the moment in the movie with the camera subtly underlining what you see instead of distracting from it.

But, of course, the main attraction here are Ian McKellen and Helen Mirror facing off. Both have played baddies. Both have played absolute sweethearts. Both have played strong and powerful. Both have played frail.

It’s clear from the opening credits that these two acting forces are going to dominate every scene that they are in, and they do.

Who can forget Mirren’s deadpan:

“Try the c*ck, Albert. It's a delicacy, and you know where it's been.”

In The cook the thief the wife the lover (1989).

Playing both weak and empowered at times, relying on each other as they are building their characters. Just a moment here and there with a changing look. It deepens the mystery (which is only in the way anyhow) and enriches the characters.

The Good Liar shouldn’t be seen for the mystery it promises. You just have to enjoy this thriller for the two acting giants having a go at each other. Shot beautifully this movie gives all the room for its two stars to shine and to show us which one of the two is the better liar. (That’s a lie, they both are).

Frozen II - a review

Anna and Elsa are on an adventure again. Elsa hears the voice of a secret siren calling her to the frozen north. What she and her sister find there will shake the foundations of their kingdom.

Frozen (2013) was an accident! Originally the plan was to go all out on Hans Christian Anderson’s original story and have Elsa be the villain of the piece (a snow queen with a loveless frozen heart). But then, of course, the songwriters came up with the most miraculous power ballad since Bonnie Tyler.

It is a very good/well crafted song. No matter whether you like it or not.

This brought the whole original story of Frozen tumbling down. How can a woman who sings such a wonderful song be all bad? So, things were changed around. Elsa became a ‘goodie’ and the story became about love between sisters.

As a result this meant that the movie had to put strong independent women on the forefront.

Suddenly Frozen had the potential to become more than just a fairytale. All the chess pieces were in place to make this a movie that heralded women. Even though I doubt even Disney foresaw the impact this movie would have on little girls.

The success of Frozen proved this ‘gamble’. There’s a market for female-lead movies that don’t involve courtship or a male dominance. Soon other moviestudios followed (Wonder Woman (2017)  for example).

I said ‘gamble’ because, as always in movies, trends come and go. In the blaxploitation-era there were numerous examples of strong independent women carrying a movie. The same goes for The long kiss goodnight (1996), Salt (2010), I would even argue How to marry a millionaire (1953). Every once in a while a movie comes out that treats the female leads as normal human beings instead of ‘hysterical-'panties-in-a-bunch'-“men-please-protect-me!”-breeding-machines’. What changed, however, is that nowadays with the internet people ‘take’ these movies and highlight the female themes within them. The hope being, of course, that THIS will be the movie that will change the world! What I’m trying to say here is that movies like Frozen -throughout movie history- came out all the time. However, we now have the platform to use this cultural object as an example to (maybe) change the world.

So, basically, due to the fact that the song ‘Let it go’ was so great Frozen became a movie about gender equality.

Frozen II: bound to happen

Disney is a lot of things but it isn’t stupid. So of course they were going to follow up on the massive success of Frozen with Frozen II. And, of course, this time around the message of gender equality and strong role-models is hammered home.

Plus some extra power ballads. A bit too many for my taste.

It’s this ‘sticking to the formula’ that makes Frozen II a bit lesser than the first outing. Everything is done absolutely right. But, because of that there is no surprise. There are the power ballads (plus a fun 80s parody song), the love between sisters, Elsa being awesome, Olaf being cute. We’ve seen it all before in the first movie; there’s no shocking new addition to the tale of two sisters.

In all seriousness I doubt the online petition of ‘Get Elsa a girlfriend’ would’ve changed my mind
because even a lesbian queen would fit perfectly in the formula Disney is using here.

Also, why should a strong, independent woman automatically be a lesbian?

It is because of this that the movie falls down flat in the second act. Once we’ve had the happy reintroductions and the adventure has begun the movie focuses on relationships.

True, there’s a nice action scene of Elsa ‘playing with fire’. But overall the whole second act is rather boring. Because each and every interaction confirms what the audience already knows. Yes, Anna loves Christoph and vice versa. Yes, Elsa loves Anna, and vice versa. Yes, Olaf loves everybody, and vice versa.

Combine this with the fact that the ‘two feuding fronts’ that are introduced in the second act don’t actually fight, or even hate, each other and the ‘problem’, to me, is evident. Frozen II is relying too much on rehashing that which the audience already knows. But is, at the same time, to afraid to really put in something new.

Unless, of course, it involves (the original thematic of) making Elsa and Anna even more amazing.

This, to me, feels like a miss. I would’ve wanted more ambiguity. In Star Wars II (or V) (1980) the good guys got their *sses handed to them. In any horror-sequel the action is upped, the character-stories lessened. In The Godfather Part: II (1974) extensive flashbacks were introduced and Michael kills his own (bleeding) brother. In a sequel it is hardly ever wise to do the same thing over again. If you want your movie to be remembered you need to shake things up. Frozen II doesn’t do that. It plays it safe.

Frozen II: still endearing

But still Frozen II manages to melt even this cold old heart of mine. Why? Because the movie is so darn endearing.

After Frozen I fell in love with the characters (except for those trolls, I don’t trust trolls). So I would watch anything with them in it. The songs are very good (the new power ballad has been stuck in my head for over a week now). And this movie has even more Olaf – which is always a good thing.

If I had to pinpoint a highlight it is Anna’s song near the end. Anna never really got to get to the forefront of Frozen and for this little moment she does. In fact I want the next Frozen-movie to be all about her.

Still, Frozen II is, in basis, a rehash of the first movie. The people behind it were to afraid to change things around. I can’t blame Disney. I understand. And yet, even as a lesser movie, Frozen II is still a wonderful movie to watch time and again.

Fun fact to end with: Uptil, now I haven't found a single cover of ‘Into the unknown’ that is better than the one in the movie or the credits. Shame on you internet. I know you can do better! The Jacob Sutherland version is almost perfect. If not for that (overtaking) distracting piano. And why (oh why) has nobody used the current voice technology to have Freddie Mercury sing the song?

Dr. Sleep – a review

Years after his ordeal at the Overlook hotel Danny Torrance has grown up to become his father Jack. He is just as troubled and self-destructive.

But unlike his father he gets a second chance to become a better person by protecting a young girl, Abra, who has the supernatural power called ‘the Shining’, just like him.

Dr. Sleep is one of those movies that made me think about ‘movie theory’ in general a lot more than the actual movie review itself. There’s just so much to talk about on a lot of different levels.

Just like The Overlook hotel has many different doors that Danny Torrance rides by on his tricycle this review will, from time to time, quick fire ‘door after door’ of movie theoretical questions at you.

Good book, bad movie. Bad book, good movie.

Comparing a book to a movie is a tricky business.  You’re more likely to hear: “The book was better” than the other way around. The reason for this is simple: if a book is good not only is it already quite a daunting task to put it on screen just (as good) as it was written. But, also, more people have read the book. So there are a lot more potential criticasters.

In this sense you could also make the distinction between ‘popular’ and ‘obscure’.

A fun thing happens, however, if a director successfully manages to adapt a book to a movie: people tend to forget the original book. Hardly anybody knows that Psycho was once a book. And I doubt the people who do, have actually read it. The same goes for Jaws, Rosemary’s Baby and (I’m certain this will happen in my lifetime) Jurassic Park.

If you can name the writers connected to these books you get a virtual cookie with my compliments.

If a movie adaptation was a success it’ll henceforth be the movie first with the book, almost, an afterthought.

Which brings me to Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick.

In 1981 Kubrick produced a masterpiece of a movie called The Shining (1981) based on King’s bestseller of the same name. But since the original book and the movie are so vastly different (and because the author is still a successful writer I might add) two ‘cultural objects’ started to exist side-by-side. Each with its own author: Kubrick’s The Shining (the movie) and King’s The Shining (the original novel).

The mini-series (1997), lovely as it is, doesn’t really exist in this ‘auteur’ sense.

And if there’s one big critique I have to give the 2019 adaptation of Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining is that the movie, in the end, tries too hard to incorporate both authors.

Stephen King’s Dr. Sleep.

Suddenly there was the news item: “Stephen King-master of horror- is soon to publish a sequel to The Shining called: Dr. Sleep.” (paraphrasing).

I bought the book the day it came out and started to read. And, I have to admit, at first I was disappointed. The book didn’t take place in a haunted hotel but was rather more a road-trip. The Danny Torrance character was an abysmal human being (in the first fifty pages or so). And the villains didn’t seem half as threatening as I wanted them to be (going up against super-power humans and all).

But the book grew on me the minute I realized that Dr. Sleep is all about addiction. Where the first book destroyed the addicted Jack Torrance in a self-destructive manner. Dr. Sleep actually offered Danny Torrance-who is on the same destructive path as his father, Jack-a way out.

The villains here are those ‘new’ addicts willing to destruct others for their own gain. And they are represented as a vampiric-cult known as the ‘True knot’ lead by the maleficent woman named Rose the hat.

More precise, the Knot’s addiction isn’t akin to alcoholism in the sense of ‘drinking one’s emotional pain away’ but rather drug-addiction of ‘getting the next shot because it is needed to ‘stay’ at any cost’.

Realizing this I could read Dr. Sleep as it really was. The book is not a retracing of the old steps but a re-exploration of the original themes by an older author whilst telling an entirely new story in a new setting. Yes it uses the same characters and the same hocus-pocus as before, but at a minimal since those things aren’t really important.

Dr. Sleep is basically an older Stephen King telling the reader (through Danny) about the dangers of addiction, the possibility of salvation and also, by including a Shining-little girl named Abra, the importance of parenting, educating and preparing the next generation.

By the way, the Overlook hotel got destroyed in the first novel. So in Dr. Sleep the finale takes place at the ruins of the Overlook.

Flanagan’s Dr. Sleep.

Stephen King has always been a very ‘filmable writer’. Meaning to say: even his most bonkers scenes are right there on the page described in full. So yes, near the end of IT the main character is flying in space talking to some intergalactic space turtle. The basic image is clear. The technical side of actually filming it is quite another story.

Dr. Sleep, therefore, is a very filmable book. There is a main character who looks like sh*t for the first fifty pages or so. Then he gets clean-shaven and is ‘ready to go’. The main villain, then, wears a very distinctive hat. It is all very visual.

So getting the shooting script together for this movie is rather easy. The dialogue is often already pretty solid. Only some subplots that would take the movie slightly off course (e.g. there are a lot of driving scenes in the novel) had to be removed to streamline it a bit.

And because the source material is already so visual, so is the dressing and the tone of the movie. The locations, landscapes, the ways characters look are all there on the page.

The big hurdle is, as always, the casting. Luckily King movies can nowadays pretty much call any actor in the world and he/she will accept. For Dr. Sleep the casting directors called Ewan McGregor as Dan Torrance, Rebecca Ferguson as Rose the Hat and Kyliegh Curran as Abra Stone.

McGregor is quite fitting as the tormented Torrance. Playing his character far more internally than he normally would he fits the profile of a man wanting to survive himself just another day.

I loved the (slightly sick) mention of a Shallow grave (1994).

Curran as Abra, then, is actually rather impressive as the youthful enthusiastic ‘Shiner’ who doesn’t know what dangers lie on the horizon.

She has a wonderful power scene in a car (was she wearing contacts that time?).

If I would give the character any faults it is that she is (as in the book) overpowered and hardly ever gets hurt like Danny does. But that’s character, not actress.

But the real steal of the show is Ferguson as Rose the Hat. What is it with Stephen King adaptations and conjuring up wonderful female villains? Rose The Hat as played by Ferguson is far more sinister and vile than her book counterpart. Every moment she’s on screen you fear that she might do something dastardly; even when she’s speaking to her lover (even though I doubt this character can love) Crow Daddy (Zahn McClarnon).

But this is the strength of movie adaptations. Good movies allow actors to become their characters, to live them. Mike Flanagan understands this perfectly well in Dr. Sleep (not so much in The haunting of Hill House (2018)).

By focussing just a handful of scenes on the newest  ‘True knot’-troupe member Snakebite Andi (Emily Alyn Lind) and her interacting with the others the actors gain the momentum to become real humans even though their core characters are supernatural and single-minded –thus, prone to two dimensionality.

As always it is fun to see the wonderful Carel Struycken in a genre piece again.

He really is Hollywood’s go-to strange man (this is a compliment).

BTW it is hinted at quite strongly in the movie that his Grandpa Flick character is a Strigoi.

Left on Flanagan’s table are the shots/scenes he wants to pull for this movie. Sometimes he pulls the camera back and lets the wide-open shots overtake the screen for a fantasy-element (like Rose the Hat looking for Ebra, or the tilting room scene). Whereas, when true bloody horror is needed, he closes in on the victim and his/her torment.

And yes the horror in this movie is as brutal as the opening scene of IT: Chapter one (2017).

It’s a polite (textbook) playing with the camera that is never distracting or overtly artistic. It is only when the big finale comes to show that Flanagan can no longer control himself.

By the way, the Overlook hotel didn’t get destroyed in Kubrick’s The Shining. So in Dr. Sleep the finale takes place at the  boarded up –but intact- Overlook.

The Shining greatest hits.

If you love The Shining as dearly as I do (and many, many, people with me) you can consider yourself very lucky. In the span of two years we got to see The Overlook hotel recreated not once, but twice for our pleasure. First in Ready Player One (2018) and second in this movie Dr. Sleep.

Comparing ´The Shining´-scene in Spielberg’s Sci-fi spectacle to Dr. Sleep’s finale one thing becomes obvious. There is a lot less CGI tomfoolery in Flanagan’s hotel. This is absolutely a plus. I applaud Spielberg for the wonderful visual eye he has but the last ten years or so he relied far too much on CGI when it wasn’t really needed.

Intermezzo This reliance on CGI is a tricky one for me because I sometimes applaud it (e.g. recreating the ‘70s skyline in David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007)) and sometimes I just don’t see the point. For instance: I never quite understood David Fincher digitally cloning an actor’s face over another actor to create twins in The social network (2010). Why not hire...I don’t know...real twins? Like Linda Hamilton’s sister for that wonderful deleted scene from Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991). Fun fact: Ewan McGregor once got himself ‘cloned’ over another actor (a lot less technical than the ‘Fincher technique’) in Last days in the desert (2015). But, then again, in that movie he was playing both Jesus Christ of Nazareth and Satan. Same father and all. So on some kind of artistic level it isn’t much of a stretch to cast the same actor for both parts (like George Burns famously did in Oh, God! You Devil (1984) as both God and the Devil). CGI can do anything...but should it? Naturally this CGI discussion is currently also being held on related subjects as ‘de-aging’ actors as Scorsese did for The Irishman (2019). The question here being, of course, how much de-aging can a person put in a movie. Should it be a little bit for a flashback or two (e.g. Ant-man (2015)) or is it allowed for the entire movie? The second subject is the current morality debate going on about resurrecting actors (e.g. Star Wars: rogue one (2016)). Would Peter Cushing have reprised his role if he was still alive (immortal)? If he refused would the studio honour his wish? In this sense I consider it refreshing that Flanagan decided against ‘recreating’ Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers or even Danny Lloyd. The movie doesn’t need that. And the audience is more than happy to accept these new actors in the parts. But this does bring forth a nice dilemma. Because the recreated 2019 Overlook hotel in Dr Sleep  is –visually- one hundred percent the same as the 1981 original. So now we’ve got ‘new faces’ running around in a familiar set. The reason for this I’ll explain after this intermezzo. Sufficient to say here is that because the finale of Dr. Sleep uses so many visual elements from the original The Shining movie the actors actually feel ‘wrong’ or ‘out of place’ almost in the same way those deepfake face-swaps of famous, well known, movie scenes feel wrong.

But, then I do give Spielberg credit for ‘playing around’-for want of a better word- with Kubrick’s classic. The ‘The Shining-scene’ works marvellously in Ready Player One because the movie is filled to the brim with pop-culture references. And it’s not like Spielberg is blatantly making an exact copy of the original movie. He inserts a completely bonkers storyline with out-of-tune characters. Only the backdrop of the haunted hotel is the same the rest is refreshingly new.

This is where Flanagan fails in his big finale for Dr. Sleep: he recreates too much! I was in awe the moment Danny Torrance re-entered the hotel of his childhood fears. The place looked exactly the same. But then what does Flanagan do? He painstakingly recreates various shots and moments from the original.

I did enjoy the ‘doctor’s office’-scene earlier in the movie (with the great Bruce Greenwood,

another King-movie alumni) since it is the same (incorrectly placed) office as it is in The Shining.

If only Flanagan stayed with these little pokes of fun here and there.

He doesn’t show us a new part of the hotel; a spot Kubrick’s movie has never been (like the attic).

No, he lets Dan(ny) take a tour to see all the highlights (The gold room, room 237, the Redrum-door, the elevators, the staircase, the maze. Only the kitchen and the red bathroom are missing). And at each of these locations he uses the exact same shots as Kubrick’s version.

He relies on this so much so that when the movie misses a beat (e.g. Danny riding his tricycle through the hall –‘new’ Danny has a different riding technique than ‘old’ Danny, apparently) it actually registers –to me- as a faux pas. It takes me out of the scene because I’m unwittingly (and unwillingly) comparing the shots.

I’m left to wonder why I was put in this position in the first place? I can understand the fun of recreating a shot or two (like the drive-up to The Overlook) as both an in-joke and a homage. But after that the movie really should have started to create its own shots. There are more than one way to shoot a stair-scene.

And that’s just the camera-angle and the montage I’m talking about here. The finale also recreates choreography, dialogue and, apparently, only the original movie’s amount of ghosts.

If there’s one movie in which Flanagan could’ve used his, now famous, ‘ghosts lurking in the shadows’-trick

that he pulled before in The haunting of Hill House it would’ve been this movie.

According to the first book there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of souls at The Overlook.

This is a shame since Dr. Sleep started so well with focussing on the Stephen King/book-lore instead of the Kubrick-lore.

Back at the Overlook hotel.

What to make of Dr. Sleep? The first three quarters of the movie are a faithful Stephen King adaptation that understands the source material. There’s some great acting to be found in this movie. Especially Ferguson is a scene stealer. But, then again, every actor fits his/her respective part perfectly with great chemistry between actors on screen.

The streamlined plot then, works a charm with very little unnecessary moments. Which, for what is basically a road-movie, is quite a feat as those movies have a tendency to meander all over the place.

Then there are the various visual tricks the movie pulls that are always greatly imaginative. Even in the scenes where the movie runs the risk over overdoing itself it reels itself back in just in time and lets suggestion take centre stage. Dr. Sleep (for the first three quarters of the movie) knows what kind of story it is telling. It’s telling a Stephen King story.

But then, for the great finale, the movie shifts gear and goes into blatant Kubrick territory. Suddenly the movie needs to tie itself to the cinematic masterpiece (that won two razzies in) of 1981 instead of the book. It is this heavy-handed connecting with the original in the final act that doesn’t sit well with me. A more loose approach would’ve been appreciated.

Still, for any The Shining fan Dr. Sleep is a must see movie. But, in my mind, it is best to see it as one of the better book adaptation of the original author than something that comes even close to the vision of that ‘other’ author.