Exit, Pursued By A Bear

Year: 2018

Director: Paul King

Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Sally Hawkins

Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

So, yes. Against all odds, I really really liked the original Paddington. But now it's four years later, the world has fallen to pieces, and the track record for movie sequels - especially to kids' movies - has never been particularly strong. There's no way Paddington 2 could provide the same level of earnest, warm quality that its predecessor had in spades. Right? Right?!

Wrong. So, so wrong.

Paddington 2 sees our beloved, marmalade-devouring bear Paddington (Ben Whishaw) having settled into his new home with the Browns, who are all more or less the same, but nudged a slight bit forward in their arcs and dealing with the problems that come with being four years older than they once were. Henry (Hugh Bonnevile) is attempting to drown his midlife crisis in yoga and ignoring the fact that his work promoted a younger, fitter employee past his rank. Mary (Sally Hawkins) is longing for adventure and training to swim across the English Channel. Judy (Madeleine Harris) has rather given up on boys and taken up journalism, and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) is attempting to appear cool in spite of his intense love of steam trains.

Paddington's retired Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) has her 100th birthday coming up, and he has decided to buy her an antique pop-up book of London landmarks, to help her feel close to the city she always wanted to visit but never got the chance to. He takes on a series of jobs at which he fails hilariously to save up for the book so he can send it to her home in Darkest Peru.

And a Paddington movie is nothing without a sublimely arch villain, so enter Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant), a fading, self-absorbed actor - think a more foppish Gilderoy Lockhart - who steals the pop-up book, knowing that it contains clues as to the location of a hidden treasure. Paddington is wrongfully accused of the crime and sent to prison, where he must work to befriend his fellow inmates, including violent chef Knuckles (Brendan Gleeson), while the Browns attempt to suss out the identity of the real culprit.

Unfortunately, he has a tendency of just blending into the background, what with his drab outfits and so forth.

If I hadn't obliterated every doubt you had yet, Paddington 2 is a spectacular success both as a sequel continuing the look and feel of a consistent universe, and as an insular movie striking off in its own direction with separate, if thematically similar, ambitions. If anything, this movie doubles down on the original's emphasis on creating a humanizing - or rather, bear-izing - tale of immigration. The more diverse ensemble certainly helps in this regard (the original Paddington is still a masterpiece, but it's awfully white), but the way the film explores the character of Aunt Lucy this time around is a heartbreaking, bittersweet portrayal.

The moment that really drives that emotion home is also conveniently the moment that declares that Paddington 2 hasn't forgotten the visual inventiveness of its forebear.

Or fore-BEAR. Geddit?

As Paddington flips through the pop-up book, he imagines himself and Aunt Lucy running through the cut-paper world, exploring the sights of a city she'll only get to visit in her imagination. Not only is it a splendid effects showcase, blending the 3D animated bears with 2D paper animation in a lusciously gorgeous scene that completely eschews live action for a moment, it's a stirring and deeply felt sequence that will have you openly weeping ten minutes into the film.

But this isn't a movie that strives to make you sad. Oh it succeeds in spades at doing that, and your chest cavity will be sore from all the times your heart swells, but it's not cruel or punishing. It's just... life. It's a celebration of the good and the bad and the way that suffering has a tendency of giving way to radiant peace. It's certainly an anti-Brexit argument, but it's couched in such an undeniably warm, loving register that it never feels preachy or forced. It's just lovely and charming, just like every other part of this movie.

These elements peacefully coexist with everything else, from the broad slapstick that's played so earnestly you can't help but be drawn in to the little visual gags that never needed to be there, but prove just how much love went into the creation of this whole affair.

In any other kids' movie, this would easily be the worst, most pandering moment. I don't know who they sold their soul to, but it just freaking ISN'T.

Now, there is an element here where Paddington 2 is a bit of a step down from part one. The Brown family, although they get more solo scenes considering that Paddington is in prison for half the movie, are a bit less fleshed out than they once were, and they always were a little bit archetype-y. They're explored less enthusiastically, although the script is still tight enough to incorporate them all into the adventure with Swiss watch precision.

And there's no amount of sidelining that can take away from just how gosh darn good of a performance Sally Hawkins is delivering here. She is always a delight, but she takes the character she created in the first one and draws a sly, self-effacing humor from her overzealous commitment to every action she undertakes in this silly, off-kilter world she's been placed into. If she's not in the conversation for next year's Best Actress nominations (and she won't be, because the world is a cruel place and the Academy even crueler), the world will be robbed of the recognition of a true treasure.

The plotting also slips a bit with Hugh Grant's treasure hunt, which - to be fair - has way too many steps. He is supposed to find twelve clues scattered throughout the city, and although that is assuredly far too many for a simple little 100 minute film to handle, the way they skip through them feels like a gargantuan chunk has been carved out of the story. But again, this element is rescued by an actor at the top of their game. Hugh Grant is simply delightful, embracing the camp pomposity of his character with a lacerating, sarcastic portrayal of aging stardom.

It's hard not to be upstaged by the glorious pastel dandy outfits that came straight from the brain of some fevered fashion genius, but Hugh Grant pulls it off, providing the film with a villain that's just as stylistically bizarre and captivating as Nicole Kidman, but in a wholly different direction.

All in all, Paddington 2 is just the bee's knees. It's more of the same, but different, just like a sequel should be. And when that same is this tremendous and that different is so inspired, it's hard not to want to sing the praises of this movie from the rooftops of any convenient towers or skyscrapers.

TL;DR: Paddington 2 is a tremendously worthy sequel that recaptures the spirit of the original.

Rating: 9/10

Word Count: 1187
Reviews In This Series
Paddington (King, 2014)
Paddington 2 (King, 2018)

The Bear In The Big Blue Coat

Year: 2014

Director: Paul King

Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Back in 2014, when the original Paddington was released, it made hardly a blip on my radar. And why would it? I do have a boyfriend who takes me to a lot of kids movies, but that's because he's an animation buff, so this one didn't weigh heavily on his consciousness either. And the character of Paddington is certainly more of a UK phenomenon. Being American, I'd certainly heard of Paddington, but had no affection for him to match that of, say, Harry Potter, The Little Mermaid, or hell, even Amelia Bedelia (I would watch the crap out of an Amelia Bedelia movie, by the way).

So there are a lot of reasons I never sat down to watch Paddington, and now I know a lot of reasons why that was a terrible decision.

Not that Paddington doesn't also make his fair share of terrible decisions.

To my point, I had no idea that Paddington was an actual talking bear, and not a magical stuffed teddy bear á là Ted. I still don't honestly believe that. Someone report back to me and let me know. Anyway,  Paddington (Ben Whishaw) is a talking bear from Darkest Peru who has come to England after the death of his Uncle Pastuzo (Michael Gambon) and the retirement of his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton). These bears were taught about the English language and customs by the explorer Montgomery Clyde (Tim Downie), who promised that the bears would always be welcome in his native land.

Now, many years later, Paddington finds that London is not the glittering gem of hospitality he was promised. The city is a cold, unforgiving place (as Babe could have told him), and it's going to be harder to find a family to take him in than he thought. Fortunately, he catches the eye of artist and author Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins), who allows him to spend the night with her family; protective fuddy-duddy husband Henry (Hugh Bonneville), hormonal tween daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris), and inventive young son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin), and matronly aunt Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters). Thus begins a sweet fish out of water comedy, where Paddington's misunderstanding of English culture, penchant for clumsiness, and absurd love of marmalade get him into quite a few scrapes, but eventually allow him to wiggle his way into the hearts of everyone in town.

That is, except for Natural History Museum taxidermist Millicent (Nicole Kidman), who enlists their anti-bear neighbor Mr. Curry (Peter Capaldi) to help her capture Paddington, who she desparately wants to add to her collection.

She also seems to have acquired her hairstyle from a taxidermied meerkat.

Paddington is no ordinary children's film. Or rather, it is an ordinary children's film, just done extraordinarily well. There's not a single ingredient here that feels unfamiliar, and yet fresh life is breathed into a collection of well-worn tropes by a cast and crew that is utterly, wonderfully committed to making the movie the best possible version of itself it can be. 

The whole thing is just so earnest, in a way that only the British can be. Every character is quirky and fun in quiet, charming little ways (even two background characters - security guards who exist only to be knocked out by the villainess - have a fun little moment where they're playing a game involving guessing the amounts of certain nutrients in a little package of biscuits), and they play off the idea of a talking bear as if it's the most normal thing in the world. Everything in the universe of Paddington is just a little bit off-kilter, which helps to ground the fact that our protagonist is an anthropomorphic CGI cartoon.

And even though everything is twee and fluffy in the best possible way, Paddington - like all great children's films - has a thick vein of darkness running its way through the proceedings to take the edge off the sweetness. This is a movie that literally begins with a young bear's uncle dying in an earhquake, for one thing, but it's also at its core a Pig in the City-esque tale of an innocent trying to make his way through a cold, unforgiving metropolis. Does he teach people how to open their hearts and make their life's better through his unwavering optimism? Of course he ding-dang does! But on his way to that, he hears the tale of a Holocaust survivor and lives out an immigrant nightmare in an immediately pre-Brexit London.

Damn bears coming in here, stealing hats and marmalade from hard-working Brits.

Kidding aside, Paddington is literally a story about immigration and racism, any way you slice it. The fact that it has a brain in its head only makes it more delicious, especially because it deals with these topics on a  level any kid could understand, and as gently as possible. It encourages people to love one another in spite of their differences, and it's hard to argue with that message.

But oh, how could we have gotten so far without discussing the visual style? Paddington is a candy-colored delight, full of little details and fillips that turn the live action frame into a page ripped from a fantasy storybook. From the gloriously busy design of the pneumatic delivery tubes in a huge hall of exploration archives to the deliciously grim cutaway to an imaginary orphanage, the production design is top notch. Every surface is dripping with bold primary colors and lit with the warm glow of a long-remembered childhood dream.

Everything onscreen is perfectly precise, and yet feels homespun and inviting, like if Wes Anderson decorated a playroom. And of any movie this century, Paddington probably has the most facility with actually conveying emotion through imagery rather than dialogue. In one particularly low moment, a mural of a tree in the Browns' house has all its petals blown off, which is spectacular, but the film is full of these little moments. Everything is packed with creativity and wonder, even in little visual gags like the backs of all of Nicole Kidman's mounted, stuffed heads on the wall. I don't rightly know where director Paul King (who has mostly labored in TV comedy up to this point) got all this from, but he needs to direct every kids' movie from now on.

If this movie was a flavor of hard candy, I'd keep a dozen of them in my bag at all times.

Of course, this world would be nothing without the humans populating it, and they're all incredibly well-suited to the job. The whole Brown family is a satisfying bundle of quirks and clipped Britishisms wrapped around stock character archetypes, but the obvious standout here, other than Ben Whishaw - who maintains a sense of wide-eyed wonder without becoming grating - is by far Nicole Kidman. Her performance is incredibly sharp, all tiny little mincing movements designed to make as much impact as possible with ruthless efficiency. She's an incredibly retrained, genuinely scary presence that generates a significant amount of tension all while indulging in constant moments of laugh-out-loud absurdity.

So, there you go. Don't judge a book by its cover, I guess. Or don't judge a movie by the cover of the book it's based on. Paddington has no right to be as thoroughly delightful as it is, but when it comes down to it, it's an actual cinema masterpiece that works on every single level it's asked to work on, as well as a couple dozen more it tacks on just for fun.

TL;DR: Paddington is a downright delightful children's movie, and I'm so glad we have the capacity to make something like it in this cold modern world.

Rating: 9/10

Word Count: 1301
Reviews In This Series
Paddington (King, 2014)
Paddington 2 (King, 2018)

Claw of Desire

Year: 2016

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Cast: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, John C. Reilly

Run Time: 1 hour 59 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

The Lobster is a preposterously divisive movie. The two movie review blogs I follow religiously gave it a 10/10 and a 0/10 respectively. The patrons at the theater I work at either walk out halfway through or come back for second and third helpings. It’s like – for lack of a better comparison – seafood. Some people despise the taste, but others can’t get enough. So with all this debate raging, of course I had to dive in there for myself and see what all the hubbub was about. 

Did I enjoy The Lobster? No. Do I regret it? Well, mostly.

I’m not allergic to shellfish, but I might be allergic to art films.

In The Lobster, love is mandated by law. Newly single people in The City are sent to The Hotel, where they must find a mate within 45 days or else they are turned into an animal. They also must hunt single refugees known as Loners who live in The Woods. If my disdain for all these oh-so futuristic capital letters isn’t already palpable, let me make it clear that the only thing stopping me from vomiting all over my keyboard right now is the fact that I really don’t feel like cleaning it.

One of these single people is David (Colin Farrell), a schlubby man whose wife has left him. While he struggles to find someone with whom he shares a Defining Characteristic, he ends up desperately pairing with a psychopath (Angeliki Papoulia) before escaping to The Woods and striking up a furtive courtship with Short-Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz), igniting the ire of the strictly anti-partnership Loner Leader (Léa Seydoux).

Another thing I absolutely adore is movies that don’t give their characters proper names. More, please!

I see what The Lobster is doing. I really do.  A society that focuses so fundamentally and grotesquely on pair-bonding is shallow and conformist, with no wiggle room to be an individual. In terms of achieving the film’s intended effect of muting all personality from its characters and design, it’s a masterpiece of intention. The ensemble is perfectly cast, especially Colin Farrell, who intimately understands the mechanics of his severely isolated role and knows how best to wring comedy from the character when he can.

The world-building of this incredibly unique setting is likewise terrific, dumping you in with no context and allowing you to uncover the depths of detail as the movie progresses. It’s not quite as rich in history as the production design of a Mad Max: Fury Road, but it gets the job done with ethereal efficiency. And the beginning is an absolute winner, slamming you into the story with a gonzo, out-of-context image that leaves you slavering for more (although, the more you learn about this film’s world, the less sense this scene makes).

So while I see the point of The Lobster and understand the polished mechanics that make it tick, that doesn’t mean I see why anybody would find themselves entertained by this droning didacticism.

Ooh, burn! This Lobster is getting BOILED!

The Lobster is so subdued that it practically fades out of existence. It’s like absurdism on tranquilizers, the monotonous performances and color scheme relentlessly pounding your brain with a sledgehammer of boredom. It’s got the pace of a Kubrick film, the flatly literal dialogue of Invention of Lying, and the music of a murder mystery, the atonal shrieks only highlighting how uninteresting everything you’re watching actually is.

For the entire film, it feels like you’re in a doctor’s waiting room, wondering if they’ve forgotten about you. Then as soon as there’s a knock on the door and you perk up, the film ends. After all, they can’t let us get too excited, or else we’ll start to think this is a fun movie. As much as The Lobster claims to be a black comedy, it does everything in its power to stile any and all joy. The scattered chuckles that escape are almost incidental, owing to the fact that there really is a great concept at the heart of this story. Only one singular moment made me laugh out loud, and I get the sense that the movie actively lamented my enjoyment, because it immediately doubled down on ponderous contemplation and a liberal slathering of slow motion.

Seriously, entire scenes of The Lobster are slomo. Not just key action moments (ha! Like it has any), but full minutes. Minutes upon minutes of pretentious napalm, obliterating the pacing and tearing the storyline to shreds. Watching The Lobster is like being trapped in a nightmare. Your feet move like molasses as you run toward an exit that glides further and further away. And anytime something even microscopically interesting happens, it’s immediately chucked from the film like so much dead weight. The biggest conflict in the movie (between the Loners and The Hotel) is never resolved. Even though we see the two sides briefly clash, these scenes are immediately forgotten and never followed up on.

It’s like listening to your grandfather tell a story.

The most extravagantly frustrating thing about The Lobster is that every now and then it shows flashes of asthmatic brilliance. It never exerts itself too much, but the occasional brutality nestled in this world of soft apathy is jarring and gut-wrenching in a magnificent way. One scene depicting the crowd’s blasé reaction to a particularly maudlin act of self-harm is coldly stunning, like an ice-chilled scalpel slicing down your spine. And then of course the film returns to flatly droning about how to properly launder a stain or the comparative weight of different sports equipment.

I GET IT. I do. But The Lobster really needs to take a chill pill. It’s so far up its own ass that it can see daylight. Everything good about the film (and there really is a lot of potential here) is quietly smothered with a scratchy, off-white pillow. I can see why this movie appeals to the Lonely Heart cinephiles of the world, but care as little about The Lobster as it does about me, or any of humanity for that matter.

TL;DR: The Lobster is a monotonous ordeal that stifles a pretty excellent absurdist premise.

Rating: 5/10

Word Count: 1055