Me Before You

First Hit:  I bought this story fully because of Emilia Clarke's ability to create joy and hope.

Lou Clark (Clarke) is a priceless and amazing character.

In this story, she’s got a boyfriend named Patrick (Matthew Lewis) who is clear about what he wants out of life but doesn’t really hear Lou or understand her needs and therefore there is a gap in their relationship.

Lou is a pleaser (not in a bad way) and suffers through her relationship with joy because she wants to please and support Patrick. We also watch her please customers in the small bakery where we see her working when the film opens. She pleases her family by working to keep the family in their home because her father had lost his job and her working provides for the entire family.

After losing her job at the bakery she interviews to be a caretaker for a young man who has had his spinal cord severed. Will Traynor (Sam Claflin) was an extremely active, risk taking, wealthy man who gets hit by a motorcycle. He’s in constant pain, doesn’t smile much, and everything has to be done for him. His paralysis means just about everything below his neck cannot move without assistance.

Lou is offered the job and brings her joyous pleasing personality and wild clothing style to Will’s home each day. He resists her charm but slowly, over time, he cannot be but infected by her joyous view of life. He hears and understands her.

As the film unfolds, the audience, might expect a particular type of ending, however it is a bit different and that alone makes this film socially poignant as well.

Clarke is so wonderfully strong on the screen; she steals every frame she is in. I bought her character hook, line, and sinker. Claflin is really good as the suffering Will. His indifference towards Lou at the beginning was perfect. Stephen Peacocke as Nathan is wonderful as the physical therapist that does the heavy lifting for Will and his family. Jojo Moyes wrote a fantastic script. Thea Sharrock did an excellent job of directing the story and the actors.

Overall:  I really enjoyed and was touched by the this film.

Central Intelligence

First Hit:  Silly, irreverent, and definitely fun to watch.

Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, separately, have both shown their comedic skills in films. Together they are even better.

The physical size differences between them only adds to the dynamics of their dialogue. The story is rather silly and without a lot of merit, however it makes little difference because the film is enjoyable by their interaction and the palpable fun they had working together.

Basically, Calvin Joyner (Hart) was the high school star and most likely to succeed. Marrying his high school sweetheart Maggie (Danielle Nicolet), he settled into a life of being an accountant. He’s disappointed in that he failed to succeed the way he had envisioned.

Bob Stone (Johnson) was the fat kid whom everyone picked on in high school and when he’s embarrassed by kids at a school function, it is Calvin that has his back. Many years later Bob has lost the weight and has become, well, The Rock (Johnson’s WWE wrestling name). He also works for the CIA and enrolls Calvin to help him solve a case. They are hilarious together.

Johnson is fabulously funny. He’s got a great persona and knows how to leverage his size, personality, and the wink to make it all work incredibly well. Hart is his maniac hyper active self, spewing out comedic twists of dialogue. He’s fun to watch and its better when he’s paired up like this. Nicolet was good as Calvin’s strong supportive wife. Amy Ryan was very good as the CIA boss who was after Stone and Joyner. Ike Barinholtz, David Stassen, and Rawson Marshall Thurber wrote a strong comedic script. Thurber did a wonderful job directing these two dynamic characters.

Overall:  If you want to sit back and enjoy some irreverent humor, then see this film.

Genius

First Hit:  Strong acting and intense scenes made this film “Genius.”

I loved the intensity Jude Law put into defining Thomas Wolfe as a wildly imaginative and talkative man.

I’ve no idea how Wolfe actually was, but there was a believability in the constant flow of non-stop dialogue that really worked for me. His verbose and expressive nature supported the extremely large manuscripts he brought in to Max Perkins’ (Colin Firth) office.

Perkins who was editor for F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway was clearly the kind of person who could manage Wolfe. Imagine supporting this verbose author to edit down a five-thousand-page manuscript by cutting over 90,000 words into something both printable and readable.

Perkins, being very centered and with five daughters, found Wolfe both interesting and almost like his son. Wolfe was living with and being supported by Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman) who fed him and helped him in a muse type way all while she was producing plays. This film set in the late 1920s – mid 1930s, was well staged.

The sense and feel of Max’s office, the street scenes, and the view from Wolfe’s first apartment were spectacular and reflective of the times. The intense dinner with Perkins, his wife Louise (Laura Linney), Bernstein, and Wolfe was filled with forceful possessive dialogue and ended up defining all four characters.

Louise, a playwright on her own, being shunted aside while the jealous Bernstein and flamboyant self-serving Wolfe monopolizing the discussion and Max, as usual, being peacemaker. I fully bought into the script and thought the direction of the characters was superb.

Firth was fantastic. I loved that he wore a hat most of the time as it was very reflective of his style and the times. Law was intensely amazing. He had me believing the forceful and penetrating inner life Wolfe was leading. Kidman was perfect. I love how she can express so much in such a controlled way. Linney was sublime as Firth’s wife and keeper of their home while supportive of Max’s drama filled client’s lives. John Logan wrote an excellent screenplay. Michael Grandage did a wonderful job of keeping the film moving along and allowing the characters to breathe.

Overall:  I thoroughly enjoyed the interplay of all the characters in this film.

Love & Friendship

First Hit:  Definitely funny and well-acted, however a bit more telling than showing.

This was a clever take on life in the late 1700’s. Women of a certain societal stature were to be taken care of by their wealthy husbands or their families.

Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) has had a few dalliances in her life and is currently engage to Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel), while having an intimate affair with a married Lord Manwaring (Lochlann O’Mearain). She’s looking for a way to both secure her future income while also securing the future of her daughter Frederica Vernon (Morfydd Clark).

They are basically homeless and stay at the homes of friends and relations until marriages are arranged and settled. Assisting Lady Susan, by being a sounding board to her manipulative plans, is American Alicia Johnson (Chole Sevigny) who continues to be threatened to be sent back to Connecticut by her husband (Stephen Fry) for colluding with Lady Susan.

At first Lady Susan was attempting to marry Frederica to a Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), who was rich, quite talkative, and very odd in his speaking and thought patterns. However, Frederica cannot stand him. From  here the story takes off.

The strongest aspects of this film were how they kept in the period, how it was shot and by clearly showing how manipulative people can be. However, this film did a lot of telling through the dialogue which got a bit monotonous at times.

Beckinsale was excellent as the intelligent manipulative Lady Susan. Clark was correspondingly strong as the daughter. Sevigny was great as Lady Susan’s confidant. Bennett was the hit of the film by stealing every scene he was in. Whit Stillman did a wonderful job of writing and directing this adaptation of the Jane Austen novella called “Lady Susan”.

Overall:  This film, especially Bennett, was very funny while also keeping a serious tone.

Holmes

First Hit:  A slow meandering beginning that builds momentum towards being a more interesting film at the end.

This film is about forgiveness, aging, kindness, facts and uncovering the real story of Sherlock Holmes.

We meet Sherlock (Ian McKellen) when he’s 93 years old. He’s retired, has difficulty remembering things, his housekeeper Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney) and her son Roger (Milo Parker) are his only touch with the outside world.

He thinks that Mr. Watson reimagined his detective exploits into interesting books/stories. He’s hung up on his last case, what happened, and why he quit being a detective.

The film traces brief memories of what happened and when we do the film transports us back to that time. McKellen plays both parts and it almost works. Him being the doddering forgetful old man and the younger Sherlock who is logical and only thinking about and using the facts to deduce his actions. When he realizes the times in his life he could have been more compassionate, the film softens and lands beautifully.

McKellen was great as a 93 year old man whose faculties are failing him. His covering up his forgetfulness (looking at his sleeve for the boy’s name) juxtaposed with the times he’s feeling full of himself (swimming with Roger) was really good. Linney did great in a very restrained role where she eventually embraces her lot as Holmes rewards her loyalty. Parker was very strong as the curious, inventive, thoughtful, and independent boy and friend of Holmes. He was the best part of the film. Mitch Cullin and Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a up and down script, which at times was too doddering. Bill Condon did a great job of sharing the beautiful English countryside and some of the interior shots were very effective. The story was too slow to start which I think he could have made different.

Overall:  A strong good film, but not in the upper echelon.