James Norton – We Are Movie Geeks

NOWHERE SPECIAL – Review

*(L_R) Daniel Lamont and James Norton in director Uberto Pasolini’s NOWHERE SPECIAL. Courtesy of Cohen Media*

James Norton plays an Irish single father of a 4-year-old boy in director Uberto Pasolini’s touching, bittersweet drama about a loving parent trying to do the right thing for his son.

James Norton plays an Irish single father of a 4-year-old boy in this touching drama about a loving parent trying to do the right thing for his son while he still has time. Directed by Uberto Pasolini, this Ireland-set family drama has delightful, wholly believable, even funny scenes between father and son, a sweet but independent-minded four-year-old, scenes which will bring a smile of recognition from parents. The other side of this tale is more bittersweet, because of what the father is trying to do: find the right new family and home for his son, before his terminal cancer robs him of that ability. The charm of those warm, funny everyday moments between father and son, and the remarkable chemistry between James Norton and young Daniel Lamont as four-year-old Michael, are the keys to why this film is perfectly balanced, between the sweet appeal of those father and son moments and the heartbreak of the situation the father is in, in this impressively-acted, moving, bittersweet tale.

Inspired by a true story, director Uberto Pasolini handles all this with great skill. This whole story takes place in an ordinary modest world of a low-income working man, and we see him deal with ordinary difficulties of life, like car breakdowns, preschool issues, working enough to affording groceries and the bills, even as his health fades. It is a dramatic story but Pasolini tells it is a way that avoids melodrama or sentimentality. Keeping it grounded and subtle makes it far more affecting, particularly with Norton’s fine performance, and the film’s wonderful father-son connection.

John (James Norton) is a self-employed window washer who is a single parent to his son Michael (Daniel Lamont). Mom is not in the picture, having been overwhelmed with parenthood after their partying pre-child lifestyle, and she left shortly after Michael’s birth to return to her family in Russia. Faced with parenthood on his own, dad stepped up, changed his life and became the responsible parent his son needed. Now at 35, John has built a stable, happy life for his son. His cancer diagnosis came as a shock, but even more so when he was given only a few months to live. John is now determined to use those remaining months to find the perfect new home for his son, while concealing what is happening to his health.

Often in real life, we see this parenting situation go the other way, with dads bolting and moms stepping up to be the responsible parent. It is one of several things that makes this quiet little family drama so good and so unusual. Another are the fine performances, and the realistic, down-to-earth way the story is told. Those charming father and son scenes help us cope with the father’s hard circumstances and choices, and give the film a little lightness and even touches of humor through Michael’s childish antics.

The father works with a social worker and a placement agency to find the one family who is right for his son, while trying to keep everything in Michael’s life as normal and steady as possible. It is not always easy, coping with all the usual challenges of life and parenthood, while struggling to keep working to pay their bills despite failing health, and still continuing his quest to find the perfect new home for Michael. The film alternates between those wonderful scenes with dad and son, and dad going about his work as a window washer, coping with ordinary life, and his meetings with the social workers helping him find the right home for the little boy. From time to time, the father and son visit homes of prospective parents, some of whom seem good candidates and some that don’t.

Something that will seem surprising to American audiences is how much help this single father gets from the social agencies and the time the caring social workers spend with him, as well as the lengths they will go to in helping him find the best home for his son. It is a portrait of a completely different, much more functional system than typical in this country.

That alternating pattern of scenes with just father and son and scenes of the father’s work and search, give us a needed emotional break from the difficulties the father faces. Every scene is presented in a realistic way, free of over-blown emotion, just quiet but touching moments in which the actors weave their magic. The photography is likewise subtle, unobtrusive but effective, giving everything an appealing naturalness.

Despite the ticking clock of his diagnosis, the father is remarkable picky about the family he will accept. He is looking for a magic combination of parents who will understand his son and those whose home has the right warmth and stability. Some of the homes he visits seem so good – well-off parents that can offer his son an education and future John never could and in a large home in a beautiful, semi-rural setting – that you wonder why he is still searching. But something isn’t quite right, so the search goes on. Some parents are more working-class like John, others more financially well-off and upper-class. Some have other children, others looking to adopt a first child. Some families are warm, others relaxed, others more strict. There are suburban ones, city ones; some down-to-earth, and some that look wonderful at first but reveal their darker side when he visits. Still he hesitates.

At first, John is certain about the kind of family he is searching for but as he meets them, he becomes less certain of whether he can judge them on a brief meeting and whether he knows his son well enough to make this decision for him, one that will impact his whole childhood. We eventually learn a but more about the dad’s own family history to give us insight on why he is working so hard to find the perfect home. Dad also is determined to conceal his illness from his son, who he thinks is too young to understand. John hopes to move him to another loving home before that illness becomes too obvious. That is a lot of pressure on this hard-working, loving, single parent.

James Norton is remarkable in this role, expressing the emotional complexity of the father’s feelings in a nuanced, layered performance. The scenes with the boy are magical, so filled with a perfect mix of lightness and real life, that we almost forget what is going on with the dad, a perfect escape for us as well as the father. Young Daniel Lamont is impressive as the boy, and was actually four-years-old at the time. He has a strong on-screen presence, even at times bringing to mind Jackie Coogan in Chaplin’s THE KID. Lamont speaks few words but his expressive face and eyes do it all, engaging with Norton and conveying a curious child who seems to know his own mind despite his young age. Norton does a marvelous job with the young actor, and he also effectively lets us see how the father’s joy in those moments with his on propel him forward as he deals with his increasingly life. As John races time to find the right home, that perfect fit, Norton also portrays him coming to grips with his own mortality, in between hard work as a window cleaner, dealing with difficult customers, school issues and ordinary life.

NOWHERE SPECIAL is remarkable, touching film, a quiet little drama that is hard to forget, and which finds a perfect balance between the warmth and often playful appeal of the father and son scenes, and the heartbreak of the father’s situation and his daunting task of finding the perfect new home for his son. The film’s low key approach lets the actors’ performances shine through, making this a much more moving film than something heavy on sentimentality would have been.

NOWHERE SPECIAL opens May 10, 2024 in theaters.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE – Review

*Kingsley Ben-Adir as “Bob Marley” in Bob Marley: One Love from Paramount Pictures. Courtesy of Paramount. ©2023 Paramount Pictures. All Right Reserved.*

Full confession: I love Bob Marley, so a biographical drama about the reggae icon is pure catnip for me. BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE, a charming, personal look at the music giant, is produced by his son, musician Ziggy Marley. Ziggy Marley influenced the casting of Kingsley Ben-Adir, who is excellent as Bob Marley. The drama covers his life, music and beliefs, religious and political, with a special focus on his relationship with his wife Rita, played by the also excellent Lashana Lynch.

The film opens at a pivotal moment for Marley, as he is preparing for a concert in Jamaica that he hopes will soothe heated political tempers in the run-up to an election. The opposite happens, with an assassination attempt on the singer. Moving back and forth in time, the film goes on to follow Bob Marley’s path to international stardom as he brought his reggae-infused music to the world and the world’s attention to Jamaican music.

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE is not a documentary nor is it the definitive biography. But it is a fine reminder of the man’s integrity and values, and the enduring gift of music he gave to the world.

Kingsley Ben-Adir does a marvelous job portraying Bob Marley, and looks strikingly like him, capturing his movements, performance style and dazzling smile, despite being nearly 6-foot-2-inches tall while the real Bob Marley was just under 5-foot-7-inches tall, although a giant of music.

Shot on location in Jamaican, we get some lovely glimpses of the island’s natural beauty and also views of the hardscrabble, dusty streets where Marley grew up. The film not only covers Bob Marley at this career height, but portrays moments from his earlier life, with two young actors who portray the musician as a small child and as a teen.

Marley’s teen years are when he met his future wife, launched his career, and discovered Rastafarianism, all touched on in these flashback sequences. The early childhood scenes have the symbolic feel of memories and touch on his feelings about his white British father in some visually striking scenes. The flashback sequences give us insight on the man’s formative experiences and a bit on the development of his music.

While this biopic is thoroughly enjoyable, two things would have made it even better: more of Bob Marley’s music and clearer dialog. The concert sequences are among the film’s most enjoyable moments and Kingsley Ben-Adir’s captures Marley’s energetic stage performances wonderfully. The characters speak with Jamaican accents, which adds to the authenticity of this Jamaican-shot drama but there are moments, sometimes long ones, where the dialog is largely undecipherable by non-Jamaican audiences. Subtitles would help, but having the actors slow down a bit and speak a bit more clearly would have been enough to avoid the distraction of subtitles. It is something that comes and goes, and most the dialog is clear enough but still, it is frequent enough that when a clueless British record producer, played by Michael Gandolfini blurts out a “What?” after Ben-Adir’s Marley says something, it gets a big, unintended laugh from the audience struggling with some of the same problem.

This are little things (well, maybe not the wish for more Bob Marley music) and do not significantly detract from enjoyment of the film. BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE is a delightful revisiting of the life and music of the beloved music icon Bob Marley, with a striking performance by lead Kingsley Ben-Adir.

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE opens Wednesday, Feb. 14, in theaters.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

THINGS HEARD & SEEN – Review

With Spring in full bloom through most of the country, many cooped-up urbanites are longing for a sweet getaway, perhaps at a quaint old cottage. Even a century-old farmhouse would do for a nice rest. Ah, but what if someone was already there and refusing to rest. Or stay in the “underworld”? Oh yes, it’s haunted house time at the movies (or at least the number one movie streaming service). No, it’s not another mission for those 1970s paranormal “PIs”, the Warrens, though they’ll be back soon in another entry in the ever-expanding CONJURING series (what, they’ve got like four spin-offs, already). No, this time it’s pure fiction (yes, those other flicks are hotly debated certainly), and it springs ahead into the start of the next decade. Otherwise, it’s a new take on yet another attractive young family as they begin to unravel due to those unexplained, late at night (usually) THINGS HEARD & SEEN.

And those “things” are in full swing as the film begins in the winter of 1980. A young “thirtysomething” man encounters them as he pulls his car into the garage of his somewhat desolate farmhouse home. The story takes a fast rewind to the previous Spring in an NYC apartment where he, artist/historian George Claire (James Norton), and art-restorer wife Catherine (Amanda Seyfried) are hosting a fourth birthday party for their adorable daughter Franny (Ana Sophis Heger). But actually, it’s an excuse for them to drink with their city friends and family, and to announce that George has accepted a teaching internship at upstate Saginaw College. All a cause for celebration, but Amanda’s eating disorder hints at cracks in the happy union. But soon the relocation plans begin as an anxious local real estate agent in Chosen, NY, Mare (Karen Allen) takes the Claires to a 100-year-old four-bedroom former dairy farm known as the Snit (later Vayle) house. It’s a “fixer-upper”, but Catherine’s ready for the challenge as Michael meets with the head of the school’s art department, Floyd DeBeers (F. Murray Abraham). One morning Catherine is surprised when two local young men knock on the door and inquire about work. She hires them with post highschooler Eddie (Alex Neustaedter) as “fix-it man” and his pre-teen brother Cole (Jack Gore0 as a babysitter for Frannie. But something’s just “off”. The lights flicker at night, while intense gasoline exhaust smells waft through the home. Cate’s discovery of an old family Bible raises many questions, while George becomes distracted by a wispy young woman working at a nearby stable, Willis (Natalia Dyer). As Floyd helps to set up a seance (unknown to George) with Cate, the college weaving teacher Justine (Rhea Seehorn) becomes friends with Cate as she begins to question George’s motives and his past. Will these otherworld forces at the new home add to the tensions in the increasingly shaky marriage? And are these “entities” trying to help or harm Catherine?

With those intense expressive eyes, it seems that Seyfried was custom-made to headline ‘spook shows ‘ of this nature. Certainly, but she also carries the emotional weight of the story’s dramatic arc. Although she adores her child, Catherine tries to clamp down on her depressive thoughts and uncertainties, which rises to the surface with that early episode of closeted bulimia. Sure, Seyfried shows us a woman facing the unknown, the same forces that somehow liberate the repressed artist. Curiosity triumphs over terror as Catherine becomes a hidden sleuth, giving her the strength to stand up to the smothering arrogant George. Norton nails his villainous spouse role using his charming smile to get himself out of sticky situations while seducing every easily swayed young woman (the female students swoon at his lectures as though he was a certain Dr. Jones). His smugness and privilege mask his inner evil. Ah, but a few see thru his slick veneer, especially Dyer as the too wise for her years Willis. She knows what George is after, yet can’t stop herself from giving in, as Dyler’s sad dark eyes explain it all to us. Also seeing past the hair and gleaming teeth is Seehorn’s Justine who chooses not to be moved by his B.S. and becomes the crusader that will end his career climb and also rescue Cate from his vise-like grip. She’s “running the show” while the terrific James Urbanik scores a few needed laughs as her pot-growing failed-writer house-hubby. Neustaedter raises the temps as the smoldering long-haired teen dream right from the cover of a romance paperback (complete with Fabio-style hair). Oscar-winner Abraham brings the proper gravitas to his department boss role, while also becoming a kindly mentor/father-figure to the confused Catherine. And kudos to casting two 1980s screen icons as the non-college town couple. Allen, as the sympathetic realtor, and Michael O’Keefe (CADDYSHACK) as her stoic sheriff/ husband.

Venturing into the supernatural for the first time, directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (AMERICAN SPLENDOR) create a subtle, simmering atmosphere of dread, making this tale closer to classics like THE UNINVITED and the original THE HAUNTING rather than the current CGI-enhanced “found footage” flicks and more effects-heavy franchises. Yes, there are a few “jump scares”, but there’s little reliance on the jarring sound mix tricks that have almost become cliche. Thanks to their screenplay adaptation of Elizabeth Brundage’s novel, the unraveling of the Claire marriage has as much importance as the disembodied voices and the hovering crows (with the time frame, you may recall ORDINARY PEOPLE). The frenetic third act has some unexpected turns, that lead to a final denouncement that offers little in the way of a dramatic “pay-off’ while creating lots of questions involving logic and character motivations. But, as I mentioned, that 80s atmosphere really works (praise to those artists in costumes, hairstyles, and set decoration), and Seyfried is a sublime horror heroine. With her as our guide, it’s an engaging tour through THINGS HEARD AND SEEN.

3 Out of 4

THINGS HEARD & SEEN streams exclusively on Netflix beginning on Thursday, April 29, 2021.

MR JONES – Review

*James Norton as Gareth Jones in MR JONES. Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films*

In the early ’30s, a young Welsh journalist named Jones uncovers a secret famine in Stalin’s Soviet Union, a revelation that helps inspire George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” The fact-based MR JONES is a gripping biographical historical political thriller about the little-remembered courageous Welsh journalist Gareth Jones (James Norton), but in a way, it is also a haunting tale of the critical importance of independent investigative journalists committed to truth.

Acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland (IN DARKNESS, EUROPA EUROPA) helms the English-language MR JONES, a powerful portrait of courage in truth-telling, inspired by the real-life Welsh journalist Gareth Jones. The drama features a script by Andrea Chalupa and co-stars Peter Sargaard. Interestingly, this film is a reversal of the usual pattern of a men making a film about a courageous woman. Director Holland puts a spotlight on the now little-known Gareth Jones, who also scored an interview with Hitler shortly after he became chancellor of Germany and tried to raise the alarm about Hitler, before traveling to the Soviet Union with the intention of interviewing Stalin but ends up exposing the Holodomor, the infamous man-made famine in Ukraine.

Hard to believe now, but in 1932 and 1933, the political and business leaders of Europe and the U.S. believed both that Stalin had created a “workers’ paradise” in a prosperous but still-new Soviet Union, and that Hitler, the new chancellor of Germany, would not take that country to war. Jones also believed the image Stalin created but what he saw in Moscow and Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, leads to reporting that stripped away both propaganda facades, revealing the ugly truth that no one wanted to hear, and which powerful forces tried to cover up.

The film actually starts not with Gareth Jones but author George Orwell (Joseph Mawle), working on his novel “Animal Farm” in a rural cottage surrounded by wheat fields. It then switches to the young Gareth Jones, although Orwell will return later. Having just garnered wide-spread public attention for being the first Western journalist to interview the new German chancellor, Adolph Hitler, Jones then tries to warn British and other leaders about Hitler’s true intentions. Although many are impressed with Jones’s feat in interviewing Hitler, his warning falls on deaf ears, even those of his boss, former British prime minister David Lloyd George (Kenneth Cranham), a fellow Welshman for whom Jones works as a foreign affairs advisor.

Undeterred, Jones focuses on the Soviet Union as a potential ally in the coming war. Like many others, Jones is impressed with the seeming success of the Soviet Union, although he is puzzled where Stalin is getting the money to pay for his impressive industrial advances. Determined to interview Stalin, Jones makes his way to Moscow, where he finds a strange and contradictory world, where questions are dangerous. He seeks out the New York Times’ Moscow bureau chief, Walter Duranty (Peter Sarsgaard), a battle-scarred Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, for help. He also meets Ada Brooks (Vanessa Kirby), a young journalist working for Duranty. Eventually, Jones travels to Ukraine, where he makes his shocking discovery.

MR JONES may not be the definitive biographical film on Jones, and dramatic license has been taken (this is a narrative film, not a documentary) but it is still a worthy effort to put a spotlight on a courageous but largely-forgotten investigative journalist, as well as to remind us of the Ukraine famine known as the Holodomor.

The world’s leaders were cool to Jones’s warning about Hitler, in part because they did not want to believe it. The same can be said of his later revelations about Stalin, although worries about Hitler might have contributed to the efforts of leaders to discredit what Jones reported on the Ukraine famine of 1932-1933. Also at stake were the interests of businessmen who were in profitable partnerships with Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Director Agnieszka Holland brilliantly brings out these forgotten facts, in an low-key but devastatingly effective way. In the notes for the film, the director says she initially intended only to revive the memory of the courageous, determined Gareth Jones but as filming was underway, the connections to the importance of independent, fearless journalists in the present time became increasingly apparent.

The masterful skill Holland showed in layered, complicated films like IN DARKNESS is on full display here as well. Holland’s drama puts us in the midst of murky, tense, complex situations with complicated people but where the political and human reality of what is happening is crystal clear. The story unfolds slowly but the impact is devastating.

Brilliantly photographed by Tomasz Naumiuk, MR JONES is filled with atmospheric period mood, as the script by Andrea Chalupa slowly builds into a tense political thriller, taking us from brightly-lit rooms in Britain and Berlin, to shadowy, snowy Moscow, where the bright lights inside hotel rooms contrast with the dark secrets everyone avoids. This devastating, true-story based drama moves from biography and history to haunting observations about truth-telling and truth-tellers that hit close to home.

The key to much of the film’s impact is first-rate performance by James Norton as Gareth Jones. Norton is a bit old for the role, as Jones was about 27 at the time, but Norton’s boyish face and energetic performance easily overcome that. Courage and persistence are key aspects of Norton’s young Gareth Jones. At the start, Jones is an innocent, bright young man with a promising future, serving as foreign affairs advisor, a personal assistant really, to Lloyd George, but he is changed by what he experiences in Moscow, and then Ukraine, transforming into a toughened warrior for the truth.

The rest of the cast add greatly to this well-acted drama that pointedly focuses on the choices of individuals. These characters are not simple black-and-white figures, but real people – complex, nuanced and fully-rounded – and what happens depends on their decisions that could easily have gone another way. Peter Sarsgaard plays Walter Duranty, the New York Times bureau chief in Moscow, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist that Jones turns to as soon as he arrives in Moscow, after learning that his Moscow contact and journalism mentor has been killed. At first, Duranty seems like an ally but Jones finds that nothing is either clear or straight-forward in Moscow, a shadowy world of secrets and forbidden questions where journalists live in comfort but are forbidden to leave Moscow and are constantly trailed by minders. Sarsgaard’s Duranty is a complex, layered, ever-shifting character, one of the actor’s best performances. Vanessa Kirby as fellow journalist Ada Brooks (Vanessa Kirby), forms a bond with Jones but finds herself caught in a difficult place, torn between a wish to report the truth and great fear.

Unable to get the answers he is hoping for in Moscow, Jones travels to Ukraine, and slipping way from his minder, risks his life as he finds starving people while the wheat grown in the area is shipped to Moscow. Thoughts of the Irish famine are inescapable. Back in Germany, a toughened Jones is committed to truth-telling and releases a statement to the press about the famine, Stalin and what he found in the Soviet Union. Jones is introduced to George Orwell, who is devastated by what Jones has revealed, which influences his novel “Animal Farm.” Jones’ discovery reveals the truth about Stalin but Western leaders, focused instead on what was happening in Germany, push to cover up the truth about Stalin.

This is a historical drama, not a documentary, so there are points where the film departs from history. As an example, at one point, Jones gives as his reason for wanting to visit the Ukraine as a wish to see the place where his mother taught. Jones, who spoke several languages, did have a mother who worked in Russia as a teacher for the family of a British industrialist based in Ukraine but by 1933, when this story takes place, Jones had already visited the area. Other details are changed but the larger story, the important point of the drama, is true, and it is a remarkable, moving portrait of personal courage and persistence in pursuit of the truth.

MR JONES is admirable film, an often low-key but powerful portrait of courage, a moving, worthy drama that both revives the memory of nearly forgotten independent journalist Gareth Jones, and a timely reminder of the importance of truth-telling in these fraught and difficult times. MR JONES is available for streaming on Amazon Prime, iTunes, Vudu, and Fandango Now starting June 19.

RATING: 3 1/2 out of 4 stars

Watch The New Clip And Featurette From Director Amma Asante’s BELLE

Watch a brand new clip and go behind the scenes in this first featurette from director Amma Asante’s BELLE. The upcoming film stars Gugu Mbatha Raw, Tom Wilkinson, Sam Reid, Sarah Gadon, Miranda Richardson, Penelope Wilton, Tom Felton, James Norton, Matthew Goode And Emily Watson.

Check out the latest photos from the groundbreaking movie HERE.

Written by Misan Sagay, BELLE is inspired by the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), the illegitimate mixed race daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay (Matthew Goode).

Raised by her aristocratic great-uncle Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) and his wife (Emily Watson), Belle’s lineage affords her certain privileges, yet her status prevents her from the traditions of noble social standing.

While her cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) chases suitors for marriage, Belle is left on the sidelines wondering if she will ever find love. After meeting an idealistic young vicar’s son bent on changing society, he and Belle help shape Lord Mansfield’s role as Lord Chief Justice to end slavery in England.

The film’s cinematography is by Ben Smithard (MY WEEK WITH MARILYN), editing by Pia Di Ciaula (TYRANNOSAUR) and Victoria Boydell (THE AWAKENING), music from Rachel Portman (EMMA), costume design by Anushia Nieradzik (HUNGER) and production design by Simon Bowles (HYDE PARK ON HUDSON).

From Fox Searchlight, BELLE opens in select theaters on May 2.

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