The Sea

THE SEA                    C+                  

Great Britain  Ireland  (86 mi)  2013  d:  Stephen Brown

An Irish film with a literary feel, using flashbacks, memories, and frequently recurring dreams intermixed with real life, often indistinguishable, creating a stream-of-conscious feel throughout, largely exploring the interior world of one specific character, art historian Max Morden (Ciarán Hinds), as he struggles to find some semblance of normalcy from the reverberations of haunting memories.  Adapted by Irish writer John Banville, the author of the novel upon which the film is based, winner of the Booker Prize in 2005 for his 14th novel, not to mention the writer of several plays and a book of short stories, this is clearly a better book than a movie.  Coming from a nation that rewards and supports its artists, it’s an inherently interesting story, given a terrific cast, but an insipid, dirge-like feel throughout offers few rewards, as outside of the outstanding performances, this novice director doesn’t seem to have a feel for the material.  Intricately connected, and deeply complex, the film largely takes place in one man’s imagination as he ruefully recalls incidents earlier in life that leave him filled with grief and regrets, yet the film has a painting-by-numbers feel, clumsily moving from recollection to recollection, where the look of the screen remains fixed, with little distinction between time periods, failing to capture the swirling groundswell of emotions in each segment, and never fully utilizing the capabilities of cinema.  Morden couldn’t be more uncomfortable in the opening segments, as his openly bitter wife (Sinéad Cusack), a well-regarded professional photographer, has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, where he can’t find the words to express his sorrow, leaving the couple in an icy cool during her final days, which literally wracks his soul afterwards, haunted by his own personal shortcomings.  Hinds is particularly good in expressing anguish, even suicidal thoughts, but the lackluster attempt to elevate the material into something more meaningful just never develops, remaining a particularly gloomy experience.  Shot on location in Wexford County, Ireland, the author’s birthplace, it features Ballinesker Beach, an uninterrupted stretch of about 20 miles of unspoiled beaches where Spielberg filmed SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) while also used to gorgeous effect by John Crowley in Brooklyn (2015). 

After the brief opener, Morden is seen being dropped off at a lavish seaside estate by his lovely daughter Clare, Ruth Bradley, last seen in Grabbers (2012), who protests his decision, thinking this is not the time for him to be alone, nonetheless he stubbornly persists.  The mistress of the manor answering the door is none other than Charlotte Rampling as Miss Vavasour, who doesn’t in the least look surprised, though they haven’t seen one another in fifty years.  Welcoming him to the boarding house inside, there is an instant flashback, where if you blink you’ll miss it, suggesting he is returning to the place of some unmentioned trauma.  As he wanders alone along the beach, through flashbacks we discover this is a place his family came to visit in the summer when he was just ten years old, though his family never ventured into the pricey estates, remaining in the “huts,” as they were called, small chalets with no indoor plumbing.  Young Max (Matthew Dillon) remains transfixed by a wealthy family he meets on the beach with two twins his age, Chloe (Missy Keating), initially seen behind dark glasses in a Lolita-like image, and her mute brother Myles (Padhraig Parkinson), yet strangely he’s initially fascinated by the sensuous, overly affectionate manner of their mother (Natascha McElhone), where male fantasies start to resemble the roving eyes of a Rohmer film, especially where it all lies upon the surface.  Even more mysterious is the adolescent nature of her husband, Rufus Sewell, a clownish, overly privileged character who always seems to be performing for laughs, where the two are never without a glass of wine in their hands.  What strikes our interest, however, is the disaffected behavior of the impassive nanny named Rose (Bonnie Wright), always with her nose in a book, allowing the kids to run free, yet she unmistakably bears an uncanny resemblance to Rampling.  Indeed she is one and the same, just a half century earlier.  As sexual curiosities play out on full display, Young Max is hooked, remaining inexplicably linked to the twins throughout the days of summer, though it’s never really clear whether Chloe even likes him or is just toying with him, as with her it’s probably the same thing, as she seems to enjoy controlling them both.  Myles, on the other hand, has a devilish side, prone to striking people for no reason, often remaining off to the side brooding.   

So much of life was stillness then, when we were young, or so it seems now; a biding stillness; a vigilance.  We were waiting in our as yet unfashioned world, scanning the future as the boy and I had scanned each other, like soldiers in a field, watching for what was to come.

While his childhood resurrects before his eyes, it’s also clear Morden is a sullen and distraught man, plainly unhappy, filled with grief and remorse, so perhaps it’s only natural that he plies his tormented soul with drink.  While this seems customarily and stereotypically Irish, Max is the man for the job, as he foolishly drinks himself into a cantankerous stupor, beyond the point where he has a care in the world, yet remains subject to impulsive actions, like throwing himself into the sea.  Despite the immensity in size, inside the boarding house is just one other guest, Colonel Blunden (Karl Johnson), a retired army colonel and an insufferable bore, while Miss Vavasour silently dresses herself in exotic Asian scarves, often seen stylishly smoking a cigarette from a long holder, all adding to a mysterious portrait of an aloof woman who’s either been around the world or read about it, where remarkably her personal life is a closely guarded secret.  This disconnect between characters, both present and past, is a sticking point, as we don’t learn much about any of them except Max, who dominates the narration, is in nearly every shot of the film, and is a bit of a diva, as he likes to be the center of attention, even if for all the wrong reasons, yet his own critical assessment of himself is a scathing indictment of a coward.  Rationalizing his sabbatical as an opportunity to write a book on French painter Pierre Bonnard, he instead commiserates in his own misery, often keeping company with the ghost of his deceased wife, reliving particularly testy conversations they had, where his behavior was anything but exemplary.  Nonetheless these offer insights into his own gloomy disposition, yet throughout the entire ordeal the film spends more time unlocking precious secrets from his childhood, as if to explain his own peculiar morbidity, as his innocence was soiled that summer, though not in the way one might imagine, as there’s a strange twist at the end that might seem wickedly surprising, but it fails to generate any profound illumination, much of it diluted by the flatness of the direction that just feels overly uninspired.  Somewhat reminiscent of Visconti’s voyeuristic and much more flamboyant DEATH IN VENICE (1971), where the surging musical score by Gustav Mahler elevated the visual impressionism onscreen, where time passing and the everpresent signs of death drown out any haunting illusions of beauty or desire, which are associated with the innocence of youth, yet the film was a failed attempt to capture the magic of Thomas Mann’s influential novel.  In much the same way, this is a missed opportunity, remaining so overly cautious in style and convention that all potential drama has been drastically washed away.

Grabbers

GRABBERS                C                    

Ireland  Great Britain  (94 mi)  2012  ‘Scope  d:  Jon Wright           Official site

A riff on the cheap 50’s B-movie sci-fi flicks like THE BLOB (1958), or the tongue-in-cheek 70’s revisionist ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES! (1978), though compared to that, a $6.5 million dollar budget for a movie like this must seem like a blockbuster budget, as this is a movie, first and foremost, about having low expectations.  If this had been made by a high school student, they would be commended for succeeding in referencing the era of the 50’s, while also making something ridiculously absurd, where the exaggerated Irish stereotypes might be forgiven due to youth and inexperience.  But for two fully grown Irishmen, written by Kevin Lehane from Cork and directed by Belfast born Jon Wright, you’d think they’d have had their fill of Irish stereotypes.  Apparently not, as they’re instead using their familiarity to portray an array of local drunkards, a quirky small town community, a church filled with ardent non-believers, dysfunctional police, and a venerable old drunken fisherman with a tall tale that nobody believes, like spinning a drunken fable into a mythical yarn, and while it’s supposed to be goofy fun, it ends up being tedious and overly repetitive, little more than mindless entertainment for the evening, a far cry from the beauty and depth of say John Sayles’ THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH (1994), which really has the fairy tale feel of local Irish legend.  This movie, on the other hand, is all about using stereotypes and cliché’s, reinforcing throughout that the Irish really love their whisky, getting everyone in town stinking drunk, thinking it’s all jolly good fun, continually paying homage to movies from the past, but the sheer thoughtlessness of much of this film is overwhelming.  Even the opening scene where three fishermen at sea witness a flash of light coming from outer space, their response plays out as dumb, dumber, and dumbest, attacked by blood sucking aliens, setting the tone for what follows. 

Set in Erin Island, a sleepy fishing village near the coast of Ireland, the town is so small there are only two policemen, and while the chief is away on a two-week trip, they bring in a temporary cop from Dublin, Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) a by-the-numbers rookie who feels that without any real crime to speak of this should be an easy two-week holiday.  Her local partner is Ciarán O’Shea (Richard Coyle), a wildly alcoholic and buffoonish cop who can barely think or speak straight, falling over himself at every turn, appearing to be little more than an obnoxious lout.  When a local fisherman named Paddy (Lalor Roddy) claims he’s caught a mysterious sea creature in one of his lobster cages, no one bats an eye, as he’s perhaps the most drunken man in town, a guy who brings his own home brew “into” the bars to swig along with the usual fare, but always has a ready smile plastered across his face.  But after a group of dead whales wash onto the beach, and the fishermen are reported missing, the police think maybe they’ll take a look, bringing along a crack scientist, Adam Smith (Russell Tovey).  When the female blood sucker suddenly attaches itself to Paddy’s face, an homage to Ridley Scott’s ALIEN (1979), it quickly spits it out in disgust, leaving a trail of slime, where the booze-guzzling cop figures out it must be the alcohol in his blood.  As there’s a male lurking out there searching for the female, they figure the only way to save the town from impending disaster is to get the entire town drunk, making them each toxic to the creatures from outer space.  While it may sound brilliant, the technical expertise is lacking in creating a feel of impending doom, where it’s nothing like John Carpenter’s THE FOG (1980).  Adding to the mix, the town is attacked by a barrage of baby aliens, a tribute to Joe Dante’s GREMLINS (1984), where brooms and sticks and stomping feet seem to do the trick with the little critters, while the giant creature is right out of James Cameron’s ALIENS (1986), where in no time the town is under siege.   

While the entire spectacle has a cheesy mid 80’s feel to it, an era before the arrival of the quality CGI special effects that really took hold in the mid 90’s with Pixar’s TOY STORY (1995), the story actually unfolds through the initially chilly relationship between the two cops, where O’Shea, threatened by her arrival, is so astonishingly drunk that Nolan sticks him in the slammer to sleep it off.  But when they realize what they’re up against, a surreal invasion from outer space, nothing makes more senses to this team of amateurs than to stomp the damn thing to death, giving it a thorough beating, something of a defensive reaction to getting slimed by the creature, where science hasn’t even a clue afterwards if the critter is still dead or alive.  Despite the danger level, humans absurdly continue to put themselves at risk while herding the local church parishioners into the tavern for an open bar, oblivious to the danger lurking outside, where the director sends out baby monsters to contend with while withholding a glimpse of the nasty creature while the entire population proceeds to drink and party  themselves into a state of oblivion.  Meanwhile, the master plan is to get the rookie cop filthy drunk along with everyone else while the actual drunkard cop remains sober, like a designated driver, becoming the eyes and ears for the town, like their gallant night watchman who’s expected to save the town against the monster.  This little twist allows the thoroughly straight-laced Nolan, who’s never been drunk before, a chance to let her hair down, where after plying her with alcohol, in no time she’s confessing all her personal secrets.  This allows the two of them to actually develop some chemistry together, where’s she’s the one now making a goddamned fool of herself while he has to exercise personal restraint not to take advantage of her sudden sexual promiscuity.  Of course the sexually charged moments are a cue for the appearance of the badass monster, where the rest of the film is a showdown between a suddenly responsible and often clueless O’Shea, with a ragingly drunk partner as his back up, while townsfolk are mere foils against the evils deeds manifested by this mammoth blood-sucking creature from outer space.  The drunken carousing gets pretty stale after awhile, yet it’s the predominate image onscreen, where rather than a cleverly crafted horror film, this plays out more like a neverending Irish wake, which the creative team behind the film obviously thought would be hilarious.  While this creature feature is silly fun, it’s also stupid fun, never really rising to anything beyond that.  Unfortunately, audiences are so deadened by what Hollywood throws at them these days, and so starved for ideas, that this is what passes as creative filmmaking.