(L to R) Jamie Dornan as “Pa”, Ciarán Hinds as “Pop”, Jude Hill as “Buddy”, and Judi Dench as “Granny” in director Kenneth Branagh’s BELFAST, a Focus Features release. Credit : Rob Youngson / Focus Features
Kenneth Branagh gives us one of his best films, and his most personal, with BELFAST, a partly autobiographical tale of a boy in North Belfast in 1969. It is more a year-in-the-life story rather than a coming-of-age one but it is a pivotal year in many ways.
Mostly, BELFAST is a child-centric comedy but it does take place in the shadow of the Irish “Troubles.” Branagh both wrote and directs BELFAST, which is filled with distinctive Irish humor, biting quick-witted wordplay and colorful characters, along with childhood memories of a working class neighborhood where everyone knows everyone. This 1969 tale is mostly both funny and warm, happening against the wonder of men walking on the Moon, but while thoughts of the Irish Troubles dog the parents and danger sometimes looms, viewers need not worry about graphic violence in this film.
BELFAST opens with 9-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill) and his friends playing in an alley, having mock battles with wooden swords and trash can lids as shields. As Buddy’s mother (Catriona Balfe) is calling him in for dinner, an angry mob shows up at the end of their street. A driver-less car is rolled on to the street and blows up. With that car bomb, children’s mock battles give way to the real battle of the Irish Troubles.
Buddy’s family is Protestant, as are most of his neighbors, but a few Catholics have moved in too, and it is the Catholics the radical mob was hunting. But the tight-knit neighborhood is not having it, and everyone pitches into to build a barrier at the end of the street to keep out the mob, tearing up the paving stones on the sidewalk to build it.
Buddy’s parents grew up here, and he is surrounded by family and friends in this street of row houses and little shops. Buddy is particularly close to his charming, talkative grandfather Pop (Ciaran Hinds), and his no-nonsense Granny (Judi Dench), who is quick to call out her husband’s more outrageous yarns. Buddy’s father, Pa (Jamie Dornan), often is gone for a week at a time as he works in construction in England, leaving Ma to watch over the 9-year-old and his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie).
Shot mostly in gorgeous black and white, the film follows Buddy’s adventures, his crush on a blonde-haired girl in his class, being goaded into shoplifting candy, working on an assignment about the Moon landing and other childhood adventures. The family watch Westerns on TV, go to the movies and the theater, where we get little flashes of color. While Buddy’s world revolves around childhood concerns, his parents try to shield their sons from the dangers of the Troubles, often led by a local radical that Buddy’s father calls a “jumped-up gangster.” It doesn’t always work, and the worried father wants to leave Ireland, but his wife resists leaving the only place she has ever known.
The acting is excellent, starting with young Jude Hill as the stand-in for a young Branagh. The scenes with him, Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench as the grandparents are among the best, funny and touching. Catriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan as the parents are both passionate and fiery. The kid-centric scenes are pure delight, with the brothers and cousins engaging in a series of misadventures that are sure to bring a smile, but there are times when we see the danger of the upheaval going on around them, when it intrudes on their child’s world.
The film is impressive visually, with a mix of beautiful black and white images, occasionally interrupted with startling dashes of color. There are creative camera angles and some lovely gasp-inducing shot compositions. Time and again, an emotionally-pivotal scene is further enhanced by artistic framing, striking enough to make you note the beauty of the shot, but also adding to scene’s dramatic impact. The pacing and editing are perfect, stylishly supporting and advancing the story. The music is striking, using some pop tunes of the era – often by Van Morrison – along with selected Western movie music, some of which is both comic and spot-on dramatically, in a weird way.
This is an impressive film, working both as cinematic art and movie entertainment, powerful dramatically while warm, funny and sentimental in its childhood remembrances. BELFAST is sure to be a crowd-pleaser and an award-contender.
In their Telluride Film Festival review, Deadline’s Pete Hammond says, “As noted the black and white cinematography is stunning, along with very impressive production design from Jim Clay another frequent artisan Branagh works with (the entire Belfast neighborhood was reconstructed in England). The sound track comes mostly from another Belfast native, Van Morrison who contributed eight songs from his archive plus a new one. There is no question it adds significantly to the sound and feel of this terrific film. It is one of the year’s best movies, no doubt.”
Written and directed by Academy Award® nominee Kenneth Branagh, BELFAST is a poignant story of love, laughter and loss in one boy’s childhood, amid the music and social tumult of the late 1960s.
The cast includes Caitriona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciaran Hinds, Jude Hill. the film is from producers Kenneth Branagh, Laura Berwick, Becca Kovacik, Tamar Thomas
Judi Dench as Miss Rocholl in Andy Goddard’s “Six Minutes to Midnight.” Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.
A Nazi-run boarding school for girls on the British coast? Sound preposterous but in fact there really was such a school, which is the inspiration for the period spy thriller SIX MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT.
Judi Dench, Eddie Izzard, and Jim Broadbent headline the film, a Hitchcock-like British historical thriller set in the summer of 1939, just as WWII loomed. The Augusta-Victoria College is a finishing school for German girls at Bexhill-on-Sea on the southeast coast of England.
The film has been a pet project for many year for Eddie Izzard, who grew up in the area., and not only stars in the film but co-wrote the script along with co-star Celyn Jones and director Andy Goddard. The idea sparked when Izzard visited a Bexhill museum and saw the school’s insignia patch, which features a small Swastika along side a British flag.
The school, which existed from 1932 to 1939, was intended for German girls, many of them the daughters of the Nazi elite, to learn the English language and about English culture, as part of a plan to spread Nazi ideology to Britain. Actually, Augusta-Victoria College was one of many international schools in the area prior to WWII, in an area long noted for such foreign-run boarding schools. However, this is a fictional film. While it is it is unclear what, if any, of the story is factual, although it seems likely that British authorities were keeping an eye on the school as tensions rose prior to the Nazi’s invasion of Poland in 1939.
After the mysterious disappearance of the school’s previous English teacher, teacher Thomas Miller (Eddie Izzard) goes for an interview as a replacement for the job at Augusta-Victoria College for girls at Bexhill. He is interviewed by the German school’s British headmistress, Miss Rocholl (Oscar-winner Dame Judi Dench), who describes the school as a place to promote understanding between British and German people. She chooses to focus on that aspect of the school rather than its Nazi sponsorship, and is genuinely devoted to “her girls” and their care and education. Although the headmistress is less than impressed with Miller, who has a spotty employment history, she does need to quickly find a replacement to maintain the girls’ English language skills. In the end, she agrees to hire him on a trial basis, swayed in part by the fact that he is half-German and bilingual.
Miller isn’t there just to teach English but to keep tabs on the German school. The school is on summer break and only the other teacher who seems to be present is the physical education teacher Ilise Keller (Carla Juri), who drills the girls in exercise routines and takes them on outings to the beach to swim. On one such seaside outing, they make a shocking discovery – the body of the former English teacher, which has washed up on shore. The discovery sparks tensions at the school, mirroring the tensions rising on the international scene as war approaches.
With everyone on edge, a tale of secrets and espionage begins. There is a distinct Hitchcock flavor to this spy thriller set in the late ’30s, specifically echoing THE 39 STEPS, although the plot is wholly different.
Audiences are used to seeing Eddie Izzard in comic roles or doing stand-up, so seeing him in a straightforward dramatic role is a bit of a shift, yet the actor handles is well. He couldn’t have better supporting cast with Dame Judi, who plays the well-meaning if deluded headmistress, and Jim Broadbent, who adds the comic relief as a colorful, outgoing local bus driver who ends up playing a critical role. Izzard’s co-writer Celyn Jones plays a policeman, a crafty veteran of the last war, who is assisting the local police captain, played by James D’Arcy, in investigating the events around the discovery of the body of the missing man.
Many characters are not what they seem, and secrets, betrayals and chases abound. Izzard’s Miller is very much a Hitchcock character, a man falsely accused of a crime who must go on the run to clear his name, although Miller has his secrets too.
Unsurprisingly, the acting is excellent, particularly Dench’s portrayal of the well-meaning headmistress, whose affection for “her girls” blinds her to what is really going on. Dame Judi gives a touching performance as the headmistress, so devoted to her young charges that she is willing to ignore the glaring warning signs right in front of her. As the spy thriller story unfolds, her position becomes more tenuous and she reaches a breaking point.
The rest of the cast also do fine work, with Celyn Jones and Jim Broadbent particularly memorable in their smaller but pivotal roles.
The whole tale is set in the scenic British countryside, with the stately home that houses the school, the area’s picturesque historic sites, and the lovely rolling hills and windswept coast. The sets and period details are just right, and scenic location setting adds both to the film’s visual appeal and its authentic feel.
Those period details include that Augusta-Victoria school crest, with its unsettling mix of British and Nazi symbols, which so struck Izzard when he first saw it.
SIX MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT offers fine historical spy thriller entertainment, nice performances and a glimpse into a little-known, curious bit of British history. It opens Friday, March 26, at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinema, and Marcus’ Chesterfield, Ronnie’s, St. Charles and Arnold Cinemas.
Here’s your first look at the upcoming and highly anticipated film version of CATS. The first trailer hits this Friday.
Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables, The Danish Girl) transforms Andrew Lloyd Webber’s record-shattering stage musical into a breakthrough cinematic event.
CATSstars James Corden, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson and introduces Royal Ballet principal dancer Francesca Hayward in her feature film debut.
CATS will be in theaters this Christmas, December 20.
Featuring Lloyd Webber’s iconic music and a world-class cast of dancers under the guidance of Tony-winning choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler (Hamilton, In the Heights), the film reimagines the musical for a new generation with spectacular production design, state-of-the-art technology, and dance styles ranging from ballet to contemporary, hip-hop to jazz, street to tap. Universal Pictures presents a Working Title Films and Amblin Entertainment production, in association with Monumental Pictures and The Really Useful Group.
Cats is produced by Debra Hayward, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Tom Hooper. The screenplay is by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot, Rocketman) and Hooper, based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot and the stage musical by Lloyd Webber. Cats is executive produced by Lloyd Webber, Steven Spielberg, Angela Morrison and Jo Burn.
One of the longest-running shows in West End and Broadway history, the stage musical “Cats” received its world premiere at the New London Theatre in 1981, where it played for 21 years and earned the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Musical. In 1983, the Broadway production became the recipient of seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and ran for an extraordinary 18 years. Since opening in London in 1981, “Cats” has continuously appeared on stage around the globe, to date having played to 81 million people in more than fifty countries and in nineteen languages. It is regarded as one of the most successful musicals of all time.
Judi Dench as “Joan Stanley” in Trevor Nunn’s RED JOAN. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films release.
Judi Dench plays a widowed retired librarian living a quiet suburban life who is suddenly arrested for spying in the Cold War, in the fact-inspired RED JOAN. Director Trevor Nunn based his film on a shocking real spy case, when an innocent-seeming older woman was arrested by the British Secret Service for passing classified information about the atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union in the early days of the Cold War. Told in part as the harmless-looking older woman is interrogated and in flashback as a young physics student recruited for the war effort, Joan Stanley relives the events of her life that led to the accusation.
The screenplay by Lindsay Shapiro is
more inspired by than based on the sensational story of real spy
Melita Norwood, an unassuming 87-year-old suburban widow arrested for
espionage in 1999. In RED JOAN, the fictional character is named Joan
Stanley. The film toggles back and forth between the octogenarian
Joan, played by Judi Dench, and her younger self, played by Sophie
Cookson. The spy tale is well-acted and well-shot, filled with fine
period details and locations. The problem, for at least some
audiences, is that the film shifts tone as it shifts between its
present and past. In its present, it is a subtle character study
unfolding as the older Joan is interrogated, while in the past, it is
steamy spy thriller, which makes is feel a bit like two different
films. In both time periods, the film presents a complicated picture
of a women grappling with complex emotions, divided loyalties and
confused ideas about patriotism, in a world that seems on the verge
of nuclear war.
The flashback story takes us to
Cambridge University before World War II, where young student Joan
(Cookson) meets Leo (Tom Hughes, who played Prince Albert on BBC’s
“Victoria”), a handsome young Russian/German Jewish
refugee. Joan is a quiet, gifted physics student who is drawn to Leo
and his adventurous, high-spirited cousin Sonya (Tereza Sbrova),
because they are just so much fun. Joan accompanies the two
charismatic newcomers to the Commie film screenings and events they
organize on campus, less because of any interest in communism than
her fondness for them. Joan quickly becomes fast friends with Sonya,
and eventually falls into a passionate affair with the seductive but
elusive Leo.
As the older Joan points out in the film, in those pre-World War II days, communism or the Soviet Union were not seen as threatening, and there was even a little fad of interest in the 1930s. As World War II breaks out, the Soviet Union becomes a British ally. Although Joan’s interest in her friends’ communist ideas has long faded, her personal history ties to the Russians and their circle remain and complicate her life.
If RED JOAN had stuck to the story in
the past, it could have developed into a steamy, exciting spy
thriller. But Trevor Nunn, a director steeped in theater, has other
plans for this film beyond popcorn-munching entertainment. The film
returns to the present periodically, which gives us more time with
the always-wonderful Judi Dench and also allows her character to
describe her rather complicated, even confused, reasons for doing
what she did. A key point is her concern about preventing another
war, as she has the misguided if well-meaning idea that peace has a
better chance if both sides have the bomb.
It is a idea discussed by several
characters in the flashback sequences but the anti-war theme is not
the only one that runs through the film. A strong feminist aspect
also emerges, as Joan’s brilliance in physics is consistently ignored
by the men working on the war effort, who think she is better suited
to typing up their research. Only Max (Stephen Campbell Moore), the
head of the British atom bomb project, recognizes Joan’s remarkable
gift for physics and recruits her as his assistant. But she still
does the typing and filing.
As the atomic bomb project advances,
things get complicated for Joan, both romantically and ethically. At
first, the team works along side the Americans in the race to beat
the Germans to the atomic bomb, but then the Americans stop sharing
research. The British project continues anyway but in a more
complicated political atmosphere. a situation that becomes even more
complex after the war. The shifting political alliances worry Joan,
who sees the Russians go from allies to adversaries, and the
Americans go from collaborative to secretive about atomic research.
Even though her work takes her from
England to Canada, she is still periodically contacted by Sonya, Leo
and their commie friends, with Leo pressing her hard to share
information despite her repeated refusals. Meanwhile, in the story’s
present, the older Joan grapples with the pressure of the
interrogation, and secrets she kept from her grown son, some due to
the Official Secrets Act and some not. The son reels as information
about his mother’s past surfaces.
Perhaps Nunn tried to do a bit too much with this film, layering this woman’s secret past with themes of feminist and anti-war sentiment. When the film focuses on the characters in the past, it builds a driving thriller tension, as events push Joan to the emotional edge. In the present, the story is more narrow and relational, focusing on the character’s inner turmoil and her relationship with her shocked son. The shift in style is sometimes jarring, making RED JOAN feel like two different films rather a single story, despite the superb acting, well-crafted production values and good intentions.
RED JOAN opens Friday, May 10, at
Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinema.
Here’s your first look at Oscar-winner Judi Dench in RED JOAN. The film is inspired by the True Story of the Granny Spy Melita Norwood.
Joan Stanley (Judi Dench) is a widow living out a quiet retirement in the suburbs when, shockingly, the British Secret Service places her under arrest. The charge: providing classified scientific information—including details on the building of the atomic bomb—to the Soviet government for decades. As she is interrogated, Joan relives the dramatic events that shaped her life and beliefs: her student days at Cambridge, where she excelled at physics while challenging deep-seated sexism; her tumultuous love affair with a dashing political radical (Tom Hughes); and the devastation of World War II, which inspired her to risk everything in pursuit of peace.
Based on a sensational true story, Red Joan vividly brings to life the conflicts—between patriotism and idealism, love and duty, courage and betrayal—of a woman who spent a lifetime being underestimated while quietly changing the course of history. Sophie Cookson co-stars.
The film was screened at previous film festivals and was an Official Selection of the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, an Official Selection of the 2018 Zurich Film Festival and an Official Selection of the 2018 Sebastian Film Festival.
Later this year Dame Judi Dench can be seen in Kenneth Branagh’s ARTEMIS FOWL and Tom Hooper’s CATS.
Directed by Trevor Nunn (King Lear, The Great Hamlets), RED JOAN opens in theaters and On Demand April 19, 2019.
Opening in cinemas on September 21 & On Demand September 27 is TEA WITH THE DAMES.
What happens when four legends of British stage and screen get together?
Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Eileen Atkins, and Dame Joan Plowright are among the most celebrated actresses of our time, with scores of iconic performances, decades of wisdom, and innumerable Oscars, Tonys, Emmys, and BAFTAs between them. Combined the four women are magnificent!
They are also longtime friends who hereby invite you to join them for a weekend in the country as they catch up with one another, reminisce, and share their candid, delightfully irreverent thoughts on everything from art to aging to love to a life lived in the spotlight.
Bursting with devilish wit and whip-smart insights, Tea With The Dames is a remarkable opportunity to spend time in the company of four all-time greats—up close and unfiltered. We can’t wait for this!
The film is directed by Roger Michell (NOTTING HILL, MY COUSIN RACHEL).
Based on the first book of Eoin Colfer’s best-selling series of the same name, and directed by Kenneth Branagh, Disney’s “Artemis Fowl” has begun principal photography and will film in England, Northern Ireland and Ho Chi Minh City. The book was adapted for the screen by award-winning playwright Conor McPherson.
Descended from a long line of criminal masterminds, 12-year-old genius Artemis Fowl finds himself in a battle of strength and cunning against a powerful, hidden race of fairies who may be behind his father’s disappearance.
Newcomer Ferdia Shaw plays the title character, with Lara McDonnell (“Love, Rosie”) playing Captain Holly Short, a feisty, spirited elf, who is kidnapped by Artemis for a ransom of fairy gold.
In the underground fairy world of Haven City, Academy Award-winner Dame Judi Dench (“Skyfall”) plays Commander Root, the leader of the reconnaissance division of the LEPrecon, the fairy police force, and Josh Gad (“Beauty and the Beast”) plays Mulch Diggums, a kleptomaniac dwarf, who attempts to help rescue Holly.
Above ground, Nonso Anozie (“Cinderella”) plays the Fowl family bodyguard, named Butler, and Tamara Smart (“The Worst Witch”) plays Butler’s niece Juliet. Miranda Raison (“Murder on the Orient Express”) plays Artemis’ mother Angeline.
Other members of the cast include Josh McGuire (“About Time”), Hong Chau (“Downsizing”), Nikesh Patel (“London Has Fallen”), Michael Abubakar (“Trust Me”), Jake Davies (“A Brilliant Young Mind”), Rachel Denning (“Doctor Who”), Matt Jessup (“Dread”), Simone Kirby (“Alice Through the Looking Glass”), Sally Messham (“Allied”) and Adrian Scarborough (“Les Misérables”).
Branagh brings back several members of his creative team, including Haris Zambarloukos, director of photography; Jim Clay, production designer; Patrick Doyle, composer; and Carol Hemming, hair and makeup designer—all of whom worked on Branagh’s 2017 directorial project, “Murder on the Orient Express.” The costume designer is Sammy Sheldon Differ (“Assassin’s Creed”), and the film will be edited by Martin Walsh (“Wonder Woman”).
The film is produced by Kenneth Branagh and Judy Hofflund, with Matthew Jenkins and Angus More Gordon serving as executive producers.
Director Stephen Frears’ funny, charming VICTORIA AND ABDUL was inspired by a real event late in the life of Queen Victoria, when the aging British monarch had her mood brighten by the arrival of a visitor from India, much to the dismay of her advisers and her son, the crown prince. Judi Dench gives a brave and bitingly funny performance as the elderly Queen Victoria, which feels a bit like a kind of sequel to her role as the same queen earlier in life in 1997’s MRS. BROWN. Frears’ handsome historical comedy/drama has a script written by Lee Hall, who penned BILLY ELLIOT, and is based on journalist Shrabani Basu’s “Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant.”
In 1887, Queen Victoria (Dench) is celebrating her Golden Jubilee. After 50 years on the British throne, the queen’s life on a personal level has become a depressing routine, with formal lunches and dinners for hundreds of aristocrats and state formalities which she endures rather than enjoys. Long widowed and disappointed with her children, the lonely queen overeats and has little to look forward to each morning. She would probably like to just sleep in but an army of servants and courtiers ensure that never happens. After all, she is the queen.
However, one particular formal lunch includes the arrival of a pair of exotically dressed Indian men, who are there to present a commemorative coin as a gift from the Indian people for her Golden Jubilee. As everyone bows with eyes cast down, the monarch looks at the tall handsome young Indian presenting the gift. He has been instructed to never look at the queen but, against all protocol, he looks her in the eye, and smiles. Worse, he impulsively kissed her feet. She is immediately charmed as well as curious.
Once Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal) catches the queen’s eye, she maneuvers to have him at her side and peppers him with questions about India, a part of her empire she had never visited. He dazzles her with glowing, poetic descriptions of his homeland which spark her imagination. He dazzled her with his glowing descriptions. and again breaking protocol, politely corrected her misconceptions about his homeland. When she assumed he was Hindu, he gently told her he was Muslim and told her there were many religions in India. When she asked him to teach her Hindi, he suggested instead he teach her Urdu, because it was a “noble language” more suitable for a queen.
With his warmth, naturalness, and infectious enthusiasm, an unexpected friendship quickly grows between them and Abdul quickly advances from footman to “spiritual adviser,” much to the dismay of the queen’s inner staff and especially her son Bertie (Eddie Izzard), the future King Edward VII. Among the officials alarmed by the situation are Lady Churchill (Olivia Williams), Lord Salisbury (Michael Gambon), and Sir Henry Ponsonby (Tim Pigott-Smith).
Fazal makes Abdul’s genuine fondness for Victoria is apparent, alternating between a beguiling romantic flirtation and the adoring innocence of a child. He takes a child-like joy in teaching her about India and, like a child carried away with his own dreams, his glowing tales include fantasy embellishments about his own family. Back in India, Abdul is a lowly clerk who records the names of those in prison but when he describes his work to the queen he is transformed into a respected “writer,” which she takes to mean a poet or novelist. He does not mean to deceive so much as bask in the fantasy himself, along with his kindly royal friend. She rewards him with servants, plush quarters and rich clothes, fulfilling his fantasies.
There is a lot of laugh-out-loud absurdity in this situation but there is also real human warmth between the queen and her new confident, which adds a special dimension of a young person bringing joy and brightness to the life of the elderly queen, the kind of delight grandchildren usually bring. Abdul seems clueless about the rules of proper behavior that everyone else around her observes, so Victoria can relax and just be human with him, a luxury she lacks. At times, Abdul is like a bubbly child, at others he is like a flirtatious young man, both of which boost the queen’s spirits, but he also serves to help her travel to far-off India in her mind and to be a sympathetic ear to her troubles. The friendship between the elderly queen and this outsider precipitates panic among the palace inner circle and threatens to become a political crisis.
Basu’s book was based on diaries and journals of both Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim, although the friendship was covered-up and kept secret for decades after the queen’s death. In the film, director Frears uses the unlikely friendship between Victoria and Abdul to satirically explore issues of race, class, religion, culture, and colonialism, mocking the latter and drawing attention to absurdities and injustices.
This isn’t the first film in which a young man arrives to charm and brightening the life of an older woman, that also has a bit of romantic fantasy mixed with a grandmotherly affection. The fact that this is the queen herself in the famously sexually repressive Victorian era offers extra titillation. But Frears only gently toys with, alluding to the subject of MRS. BROWN, in which Dench also starred as Queen Victoria in another romantic flirtation, and generally just leaves it at looks and tone of voice between Dench and Fazal.
Judi Dench is fearless and amazing in her role as Queen Victoria. Dench allows the camera to linger on every wrinkle and even the bit of food on her chin, as the depressed queen greedily hurries through her formal luncheon, inconsiderately slurping her soup so quickly that guests hardly taste it before bowls are removed as protocol requires. When Abdul’s bright smile and enthusiasm catch her attention, Dench spotlights the queen’s curiosity and suddenly renewed interest in life, as well as her hunger for a real human connection denied her in her strictly formal life. Dench’s Victoria also shows a mischievous enjoyment sparked by goading the religious prejudice, class-ism and racism that grip her inner circle as they grow alarmed over her attentions to Abdul.
The prejudices and hatreds at play are embodied by Michael Gambon’s indignant Lord Salisbury, Olivia Williams’ disdainful Lady Churchill and Eddie Izzard’s sputtering Bertie in particular, who conspire to rid the household of Abdul’s inconvenient presence. The subject of an inappropriate romantic attraction is addressed much less than their racial, religious and class outrage.
The real Abdul Karim may have been a rogue and a bit of a con man but as Bollywood star Ali Fazal plays him he is a sweetly boyish charmer, which works much better for this film. While Fazal creates a likable dreamer and we easily see his appeal for the lonely Victoria, Abdul’s motives and inner thoughts remains opaque. Frear never really lets us inside the head of this character, although we do see his affection and real friendship for the queen. Abdul’s enjoyment at living a fantasy life as a nobleman is clear but his reasoning behind some of his deceits is murky. He spins a tale of his noble educated family when in fact they are poor and uneducated but it is unclear if he is trying to convince the queen they are social equals or just fantasizing out loud about what he wishes was true.
While always-positive Abdul is enthusiastic about being in England, his companion and fellow countryman Mohammed (Adeel Akhtar) in not. The original plan was to send a pair of tall Indian men to make the presentation to the queen together, but a last-minute problem meant the short, dour Mohammed was pressed into service instead. The change put Abdul Karim front and center before the queen, with his fellow countryman as a sort of supporting player. As Abdul ascends, Mohammad is reduced to being his servant.
Akhtar provides a pleasantly comic downbeat character to Abdul’s unrelenting sunniness, but also provides the film’s most pointed commentary on colonialism and cultural prejudice. Akhtar’s Mohammed dislikes all things British, describes their food as “completely barbaric,” and longs to go home. He serves as the voice of reality to Abdul’s dream world. While Abdul basks in his elevated position, Mohammed knows its all fantasy, and Indians are suffering at home under British colonial rule.
Cinematographer Danny Cohen (THE KING’S SPEECH) makes sure the film is visually beautiful and lavish, making good use of the wonderful locations, sets and costumes. As gorgeous as the film is, it is still Dench’s performance that really rivets.
VICTORIA AND ABDUL seems certain to snag another Oscar nomination for Judi Dench, in this funny, winning historic film.
20th Century Fox has released a new one sheet for MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. From the novel by best-selling author Agatha Christie, “Murder on the Orient Express” tells the tale of thirteen strangers stranded on a train, where everyone’s a suspect.
Clues are everywhere. Everyone is a suspect. Eagle-eyed sleuths may notice a new clue hidden in this latest one sheet. Visit CluesAreEverywhere.com to uncover more clues and learn about the suspects aboard the Orient Express.
What starts out as a lavish train ride through Europe quickly unfolds into one of the most stylish, suspenseful and thrilling mysteries ever told. From the novel by best-selling author Agatha Christie, “Murder on the Orient Express” tells the tale of thirteen strangers stranded on a train, where everyone’s a suspect. One man must race against time to solve the puzzle before the murderer strikes again.
Kenneth Branagh directs and leads an all-star cast including Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley and Josh Gad.
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS hits theaters everywhere November 10, 2017.
Kenneth Branagh stars in Twentieth Century Fox’s “Murder on the Orient Express.”
