Pride and Prejudice and Zombies [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review


Pride and Prejudice and Zombies [2016] (directed and screenplay by Burr Steers based the "Quirk Classics" novel [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Jane Austen [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] and Seth Grahame-Smith [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn]] [IMDb]) will certainly have its fans and it does have its moments.

For many, the story's premise alone -- which mixes the principal preoccupation of the Bennett sisters of Jane Austen's celebrated "regency era" novel Pride and Prejudice [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] of "finding good husbands" for themselves with a _zombie plague_ -- will be compelling enough to search-out the zombies-added book / see the movie ;-).

Indeed, a good amount of the already quite imaginative / often famously funny "verbal sparring" that takes place between the characters in Jane Austen's original novel is re-imagined here to play-out in the context of _actual sparring_ and/or _combat_ ;-).  For Mr Bennett [wikip] [IMDb] (played in the film by Charles Dance), being the wise / good father that he was, had all five of his daughters trained in the martial arts so that they could defend themselves should they be attacked by zombies ;-).  There's even a particularly biting exchange between the quick witted, never-to-be-taken-for-granted Elizabeth Bennett [wikip] [IMDb] (played in this film by Lily James) and the ever seemingly standoffish Mr Darcy [wikip] [IMDb] (played in this film by Sam Riley) who seemed always to be more focused on his work -- here killing zombies ;-) -- than on people.  The said exchange, of course, takes place in the midst of each hacking-to-pieces a bunch of attacking zombies even as they make the point to each other that they ... well ... don't much like each other ;-).  And so it goes ...

My sadness with this story / film is that it didn't go far enough. The zombies in this story / film always remained outsiders.  I think that the story would have become far more interesting if a number of the major characters turned into zombies themselves.

The story comes close several times:  Elizabeth's ever sweet older sister Jane Bennett [wikip] [IMDb] (played in this film by Bella Heathcote) does have an altercation with zombies in the woods as she heads over to see her beau Mr. Bingley [wikip] [IMDb] (played in the film by Douglas Booth)  When she arrives, she's been wounded / feverish.  BUT ... the story's creators didn't have the courage to make her explicitly into a zombie.   Similarly Mr. Bingley, had an altercation which _could suggest_ that he too _could have been bitten by a zombie_ BUT ... again the story's creators didn't seem to have the courage to make it so.  Finally, there's even a hint that Mrs Bennett [wikip] [IMDb] (played by Sally Phillips) could be turning into a zombie (and those who know something of Jane Austen's original novel, would certainly find it amusing if she did ;-).  BUT again, the creators here didn't have the courage to do so. ;-/

Compare this with the zombie in Warm Bodies [2013] named (all he remembers is) R ... who falls in love with a still human girl named Julie (that film even features a "balcony scene" ;-), or Maggie [2015] the Arnold Schwarzenegger starring tear-jerky father-daughter zombie-Apocalypse drama in which Schwarzenegger's character's beloved "junior in high school aged" daughter, Maggie, was slowly, inexorably turning into a zombie, and there was nothing that anybody could do about it (one reviewer even called that film "The Fault in our Scars" ;-).

Talk about the statement about PRIDE and PREJUDICE that the current story could have made if the beautiful / kind Jane Bennett and perhaps even her really nice guy of a beau Mr. Bingley had become zombies ...

Sigh ... but at least we get to watch _a lot_ of zombies being splattered here ...


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Son of Saul (orig Saul Fia) [2015]

MPAA (R)  Chicago Tribune (4 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
CinEuropa.org listing
Port.hu listing*

FilmHu (R. Győr-Nádai) review*
Jewish Journal (N. Pfefferman) review
NY Jewish Week (G. Robinson ) review
CinEuropa.org (D. LaPorta) review

APUM.com (A. Sáez) review*
aVoir-aLire.fr (G. Lauradour) review*

CNS/USCCB () review
Chicago Tribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Eye For Film (A. Wilkenson) review
Sight & Sound (N. James) review

Jewish Journal (N. Pfefferman) conversation w. film's makers / Auschwitz survivor


Son of Saul [2015] (orig. Saul Fia) [IMDb] [CEu] [Pt.hu]*(directed and cowritten written by László Nemes [IMDb] [CEu] [Pt.hu]* along with Clara Royer [IMDb] [CEu] [Pt.hu]*) is a Hungarian Holocaust-themed film that's been nominated for and certainly would deserve to win the award for the Best Foreign Language Picture at the Oscars this year.

Evoking the focused / closed even claustrophobic aesthetics of Soviet GULAG survivor Alexander Solzhenitzin's [wikip] A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich [GR] [WCat] [Amzn], the current story focuses on "a day in the life of" a single Hungarian Jewish prisoner, Saul Ausländer (played magnificently by Géza Röhrig [IMDb] [CEu] [Pt.hu]*) at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp in late-1944.

Saul is _both_ UTTERLY RANDOM _and_ "RANDOMLY SPECIAL": A big blood red "X" on the back of his black-and-grey prisoner's uniform, marks that he's been "passed over" [cf. Ex 12:7] at least temporarily from immediate death.  Instead along with a squad of other _randomly_ "chosen" Jewish prisoners, he's been given the Mephistophelian "job" of rapidly "processing" (removing) the bodies / belongings of the far-less "lucky" recently arrived / gassed Jewish prisoners, prisoners who were arriving, day-and-night, 24/7, by the train-load, in the last months of the Camp's operation ... OFTEN FROM HUNGARY. 

Now on this random day, "a day like any other day" ... in AUSCHWITZ ..., something happens that's somewhat remarkable.  As Saul and his fellow "X-marked" Sonderncommandos (special unit of prisoners) enter the chamber of recently gassed Jewish arrivals to remove the bodies and hose-down / scrub the walls / floors of the blood / excrement left by the said utterly desperate / terrified arrivals in the last moments of their lives, to their amazement they find among the bodies (who the Nazi overseers simply called "stücke" or "pieces") a boy, perhaps 12-13, still weakly gasping / breathing.

Briefly "lucky", the Nazis quickly dispatch the boy ANYWAY (by suffocating him) BUT order that he be "autopsied" AND Saul gets it in his head that this boy, 12-13 when he died, COULD HAVE BEEN HIS SON.  He runs around trying to grab at the id-papers left among the rapidly being processed / removed / disposed-of belongings of those who had died in the chamber with the boy trying to rapidly ascertain if they had arrived from Hungary.  AND he asks the doctor, also a Jewish prisoner, assigned to do the Nazi autopsy, if he could "hide" the body of the boy, if for a while, because he would like to bury it.

The doctor, perhaps even slightly sympathetic but (like the others) mostly in a depressive / zombie-like "zone", tells Saul that he'd have to replace the boy's body with another boy's body and that it'd almost certainly be "found-out" in some way.  After all, that 12-13 year-old boy had again been "slightly special" in some way ... he survived _at least A LITTLE BIT LONGER_ the effects of the Zyclon-B gas that KILLED the rest, while ANOTHER 12-13 year-old boy who simply died of the gas would NO LONGER be (ever so slightly) "special."

Nevertheless, Saul spends much of the remaining day IN THE MIDST of his "regular work" (helping to remove the bodies / belongings of OTHER recently arrived / gassed Jewish prisoners) to (1) find a Rabbi to perform the Kaddish (the Jewish burial rite) for the boy, THIS BOY and (2) if he got the Rabbi and took him to the boy, presumably to quickly find the body of _some other dead boy_ to replace _this one_ so that he could bury him.

In the midst of Saul's little self-initiated mission (in the midst of the HELL of Auschwitz...), amidst rumors that the Nazis were soon going to "cull" / kill a good number of the current Sonderncommandoes (to replace them with new ones), the current ones were planning a desperate uprising / escape.  Among them, about 70, they were able, in one way other other, to get a hold of seven (!) guns.  But who could shoot them?  Apparently SAUL was one of the better prospects.  But now he's "distracted" by his "little mission" to bury this little 12-13 year-old boy.

And in the midst of trying to get the only rabbi that he knows (one of the other Sonderncommandoes) to the body of the boy, while each is being ordered about, quite randomly but forcefully by ever-about SS guards, while others are trying to mount this desperate uprising / escape against said guards, THE AWFUL BANGING / FIRES / MACHINERY of the INDUSTRIAL OPERATION that AUSCHWITZ was RELENTLESSLY BANGING ON ... and ON ... and ON.

Much of this film -- thankfully only about 90 minutes long -- becomes about Saul (and the other prisoners) trying to make at least SOME KIND OF A STAND against the HORROR _BANGING_ all around them: Does one FIGHT?  Or at least try to "bury the kid"?  DO _EITHER_ MAKE ANY SENSE?

One gets the sense that MANY of these prisoners KNEW that their actions MATTERED but also FEARED (perhaps rightly) that their actions / "options" ALSO _DIDN'T MATTER AT ALL_.

They were both _random_ and at least temporarily "randomly special" and the TRAINS KEPT COMING and the OVENS KEPT BURNING and they had but seven guns and even LESS people who could use them.  DID IT MATTER / WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MATTER in the face of this HORROR?

One heck of a film.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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Kung Fu Panda 3 [2016]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

China Daily Europe (Xu Fan) article
China Daily USA (Ami He) article
Shanghai Daily (Xinhua) article 

CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  


Kung Fu Panda 3 [2016] (directed by Alessandro Carloni and Jennifer Yuh, screenplay by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger) continue to develop the already wildly successful (world wide) / family friendly Kung Fu Panda franchise.

The current film, a collaboration of the franchise's creator DreamWorks Animation along with its recently created sister company Oriental DreamWorks and the Shanghai based China Film Co. promises even more to detail than the previous two films.  For instance, the "Shangri-la" like "panda village" to which Po (still voiced by Jack Black) is taken by his long lost father Li (voiced by Bryan Cranston) after they are reunited in the current installment, is modeled after the temples and topography around Mount Qingcheng [zh.wikip]*[ja.wikip]*[en.wikip] (in central Sichuan Province) both a traditional center for Taoist spirituality and a famous sanctuary for giant pandas today.

Indeed, the attention to such detail makes this series both a nice and fun tool for families to learn about traditional Chinese culture and spirituality.  As I wrote in my review of the previous installment Kung Fu Panda 2 [2011], there are quite a few similarities between Eastern and Christian spirituality including the admonition to not judge by appearance [cf. 1 Sam 16:7], and that "many who are first shall be last and the last shall be first" [Mt 19:30].

As a "homework assignment," I'd encourage families / kids to look-up the Chinese cultural symbolism [wikip] [kfp-wiki] of the various animals depicted in the film (and compare it to one's own).  For all of the animals depicted -- from the Panda (voiced primarily by Jack Black), to the Crane (voiced by David Cross), the Goose (voiced by James Hong) the Mantis (voiced by Seth Rogan), the Monkey (voiced by Jackie Chan), the raccoon-like Red Panda (voiced by Dustin Hoffman), the Tig(ress) (voiced by Angelina Jolie), the Turtle (voiced by Randall Duk Kim),  the Viper (voiced by Lucy Liu), to the current film's villain the Yak (voiced by J.K. Simmons) -- have traditional, often amusing, Chinese cultural connotations.

All in all, there's a lot in these films to explore, and for reasons that I already expressed in my review of the previous installment, Kung Fu Panda 2 [2011], I'd encourage viewers / their families to do so.  Happy viewing! ;-)


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Mustang [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  Beyazperde (1 1/2 Stars)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Allocine.fr listing*
Beyazperde listing*

AFK Sinema'da (A.F. Kisakurek) review*
ArtfulLiving.com.tr (S. Aydemi) review*
Beyazperde (A. Ecrivan) review*
BirGün (A, Daldal) review*
Budzan Sinema (F. Songur) review*
Cumhuriyet (Mehmet Basutçu) review*
FilmLoverss (B. Anadolu) review*
Parallel Sinema (G. Tekes) review*

t24.com.tr (Y. Talu) interview w. director*
Hollywood Reporter (R. Richford) interview w. director

Hollywood Reporter (D. Rooney) review
Slant Magazine (J. Lattimer) review
Variety (J. Weissberg) review

ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review


Mustang [2015] [IMDb] [AC.fr]* [BP.tr]* (directed and co-written by Turkish-born / French-raised director Deniz Gamze Ergüven [IMDb] [AC.fr]*[BP.tr]* along with Alice Winocour [IMDb] [AC.fr]*[BP.tr]*) is a contemporary "Repunzel-like" [AR] [wikip] (and quite "grim") fairy-tale set at the outskirts of a small Black Sea town in Turkey of today.  The film (in Turkish) was FRANCE'S submission to the 88th (2015-16) Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and was selected as one of this year's five final nominees.

Narrated by 10-12 year-old Lale (whose name means "Tulip" and played wonderfully throughout by Güneş Nezihe Şensoy [IMDb] [AC.fr]*[BP.tr]*) the youngest of five sisters -- the others being Sonay (played by İlayda Akdoğan [IMDb] [AC.fr]*[BP.tr]*), Selma (played by Tuğba Sunguroğlu [IMDb] [AC.fr]*[BP.tr]*), Ece (played by Elit İşcan [IMDb] [AC.fr]*[BP.tr]*) and Nur (played by Doğa Zeynep Doğuşlu [IMDb] [AC.fr]*[BP.tr]*) -- growing up orphaned (on account of an auto accident that killed their parents when they were of a young age) and being raised since by their grandmother (played by Nihal Koldaş [IMDb] [AC.fr]*[BP.tr]*) and uncle Erol (played by Ayberk Pekcan [IMDb] [AC.fr]*[BP.tr]*) all seemed quite good ("despite...") until one fateful day.

That fateful day begins the movie:  School was being let-out for the summer, and the five sisters found themselves walking "by the sea."  One thing leading to another, soon they're splashing in the water.  Then some boys their age come around, and soon the girls on the shoulders of the boys are playing chicken fights (still clothed, a concession perhaps for the eventual Turkish audience, but certainly wet) in said water / Sea.

The scene more or less obviously evokes a similar (if far more "in your face" / problematic) scene in the recent American film Spring Breakers [2012] and it reminds Viewers, as per the lovely and happy Cindy Lauper song, that girls, ALL GIRLS, even in small-town/provincial Turkey (and by extension in the whole Muslim world...) "Just want to have fun" [YouTube].  And honestly, within reasonable (debatable) limits, what should be wrong with that?

Well ...

This WASN'T FORT LAUDERDALE ... this was "small town / Provincial Turkey," and by the time the five girls, still in their school uniforms, still wet, but drying, fast, in the Turkish summer sun, come home Grandma's waiting, freaked-out, because she's been informed by the head-scarf-wearing / incomprehending / perhaps not even super-Conservative but Conservative-enough "nosy-neighbor grapevine" that her grand-daughters had gone "out of their minds" and were "acting like whores" out on the beach.  And when Uncle comes home, it only gets worse.

No wonder that 10-12 y/o Lale BEGINS THE FILM with the voice-over saying: "Funny how life can change.  One moment it can be just fine and then become Hell in the next..."

Blinded by perceived social pressure (and certainly not having any stomach, at all, to stand-up to it), Grandma and Uncle Erol DECIDE TO LOCK-UP the five girls in their house on a hill (kinda like a Repunzel-like tower) henceforth and (apparently sincerely) "for the girls' own good" seek then to try to marry them off, one after another, of increasingly _decreasing age_ so that the girls "could get married and have a happy life" before they "destroyed themselves" by falling into sin.

It's a parable that shocks ... and INTENTIONALLY SO.

One could complain that this film was made by a Turkish born director "in France" (to needlessly embarrass Turks / Turkey) but (1) the film itself was actually filmed in Turkey [IMDb] [wikip] and (2) ALMOST CERTAINLY the film was INTENDED for "middle-of-the-road" / "on the fence" Turks and Turkey (which is has tried very, very hard FOR DECADES, since the end of WW I in fact, TO BE "MIDDLE OF THE ROAD" -- Muslim by heritage but Western / secular in orientation) asking its Turkish audience: "Is this what you want?" (as there has been a still moderate but to those living there potentially worrisome "Muslim resurgence" there over the last decade or so).

Anyway, the film may provide fodder for Westerners to simply hate Muslims, but the film is more intelligent than that ... and Westerners tending to go in that direction ought to simply remind themselves that this was a film made by a Turkish-born director using a Turkish cast and filmed in Turkey today.  So the film and its intent is more complicated than would seem to a potential bigot's eye.

 

* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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The Finest Hours [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (P. Sobczynski) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review  

The Finest Hours [2016] (directed by Craig Gillespie, screenplay by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson based on the book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Casey Sherman [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] and Michael G. Tougias [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) tells the story of a truly stunning still "Greatest Generation-ish" U.S. Coast Guard rescue of the greater part of the crew of a U.S. oil tanker that split in two off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts during a powerful Nor'easter storm back in 1952.

Many viewers will marvel at the courage, selflessness, ingenuity and sense-of-duty of the people of the time: A tanker ship SPLIT IN TWO out there 20-30 miles off of the coast of Cape Cod.  Yet the sailors in THE HALF (of the SHIP THAT SPLIT IN TWO) that DID NOT SINK IMMEDIATELY had the coolness, skill and ingenuity to COME-UP _with a plan_ to USE what was LEFT IN THAT HALF of the ship (that didn't not sink) to keep themselves alive.

I will freely say that I WOULD HAVE DIED (!).  I do think of myself as a pretty smart guy, even one who comes up with remarkable ideas under pressure, BUT HONESTLY MY HATS OFF TO THAT REMAINING CREW led by ship's engineer Ray Sybert (played in the film with magnificent coolness by Casey Affleck) that really used a ship that was, well ... HALF GONE, to help save themselves.

Then, THE COURAGE OF THE FOUR MAN COAST GUARD CREW, led by Bernie Webber (played again magnificently by Chris Pine) who took out a 35 ft boat into SEAS WITH WAVES EASILY TWICE THAT SIZE to search for that broken ship EVEN AFTER LOSING THEIR OWN COMPASS while passing through "The Bar" (basically where the waves break, and the 35 foot boat was tossed about like a loose surf-board) to get out to the open seas.  THE COURAGE IN THAT IS JUST STUNNING.

Why would these guys do this?  Risk their lives for the sake of others who they did not know and were not necessarily even going to find, much less find alive?

Well Bernie explains (in a line that many Readers here will know from the film's trailer): "The Coast Guard tells us that we have to go out.  It doesn't tell us that we have come back in..."

This is just a remarkable story of selflessness, ingenuity and courage that does challenge us today to Step-up as well.  Great, great job!


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Censored Voices [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub ()  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub () review  

Censored Voices [2015] [IMDb] [WCat] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Mor Loushy along with Daniel Sivan the based on conversations recorded of Israeli soldiers just after the 6 Day War, found also in the book The Seventh Day: Soldiers' Talk about the Six Day War [1971] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Avraham Shapira [GR] [WCat] [Amzn]) is an Israeli documentary about a remarkable set of conversations recorded of Israeli soldiers returning from the 1967 Six Day War in the weeks following the conflict.   The film played recently here at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center.

Since the recordings were made in the weeks immediately following the conflict, the memories of these soldiers were still fresh and (inevitably for both better / worse) unaltered by subsequent reflection / history / events.  Surprising perhaps for Viewers today would be the ambiguity expressed by these Israeli soldiers coming home from this history altering conflict about the war: All seemed to understand why the conflict had to be fought (Israel's survival was on the line), but virtually all seemed profoundly uneasy about its result (yes, unqualified victory but occupation of the other side as well).

Yes, one understands why these interviews were censored by Israeli authorities at the time.  After all, the conversations were quite "down-ish" at a time when Israel had just survived, largely unscathed, the single biggest threat to its existence.

Still today, the film and the opinions expressed by these returning soldiers can not but help promote a future peace process because the opinions expressed fundamental doubts by these returning Israeli soldiers of the sustainability (and _justice_) of the post-1967 reality where Israel simply conquered (and to this day largely occupies) _the whole_ of Palestine.

Particularly poignant was the opinion expressed by one of the soldiers who said: "It's not as if we are 100% right or each side is 50% right.  The tragedy here is that both sides are 100% right... This war began with us fighting for our country's survival, and ended very differently, with us expelling [large numbers of] people from theirs."

I am not merely an American blogger, I'm one of Czech descent.  So I totally understand this ambiguity / remorse.  Post WW-I / modern Czechoslovakia's independence was done-in by the presence of large numbers of Sudeten Germans along its frontiers who had both inalienable rights and their own national aspirations.  These same Sudeten Germans were simply expelled by the re-emergent Czechoslovakian state in the weeks immediately following WW II.  To some extent "it worked."  There is no more (serious) argument over the lands in question BUT at what awful moral cost.  There is no (thoughtful) Czech who feels good about this.  And yet, what else to do?   Today, the descendants of the expelled Sudeten Germans are allowed to go back _to visit_ the lands / properties that were taken from them by the Czechs after the War.  EVERYONE _understands_ why this happened.  Thoughtful people on both sides "feel sorry" / "bad" and yet, there it is.  "National parks" now exist where villages once stood, "wild apricot" / "cherry" / "apple" groves exist in the midst of modern "meadows" and "forests" that didn't exist before the War.

It's both awful and yet, again, everybody on both sides sinks their heads and knows why.

Modern Israel exists in a similar situation (and has been actually _kinder_ than the post- WW II Czechs).

I ALSO KNOW that there are PLENTY OF THOUGHTFUL ARABS / MUSLIMS as well.  Perhaps a first step to peace would be a public acknowledgement of the tragedy existent in, what we Catholics actually call "The Holy Land," acknowledge WHY Israel exists (and will certainly continue to exist / fight to exist into the LONG forseeable future) and WHY the Palestinians, both expelled / displaced and those still living in Gaza and in the West Bank are often SO ANGRY at the modern and still expanding State of Israel.

Anyway, the often remorseful Israeli voices heard in this film CAN, I believe, help to prepare the way to a peace or at least an understanding that both sides do _understand_ the other.

ADDENDUM:

This is actually a film that MAY be most easily found by checking listings at your local public libraries (or through them, make a request for an "interlibrary" loan): Censored Voices [2015] [WCat]




* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

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45 Years [2015]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (4 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (A)  Fr. Dennis (1 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

45 Years [2015] (directed and screen adaptation by Andrew Haigh of the short story by David Constantine [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is something of an "old folks" horror story (and IMHO as "unbelievable" as one with real "ghosts").

Set somewhere in rural / "at the edge of the suburbs" England, Kate and Geoffrey Mercer (played by Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay respectively) are getting set to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary.   Well, actually Kate is doing most of the work, Geoffrey's is already a bit "out of it" with some (still thankfully moderate) dementia.  Indeed, we're informed in the course of the dialogue that the reason why they are celebrating their 45th anniversary is because Geoffrey had some significant health issues when their 40th anniversary was coming around and it seemed pretty clear that Geoffrey in particular would probably not make it to their 50th.

Further, both having been quite the "left-leaning intellectuals" in their day, it's not altogether surprising that there would be no children or grandchildren.   Perhaps more surprising would be that there were no siblings or family of any sort present to help plan the date or really present at all.

This becomes significant because as poor Kate is busy planning this "big day" for them and their friends, quite RANDOMLY Geoffrey comes across a news story that the body of a seemingly RANDOM woman had been found at the base of some glacier (they're melting away) somewhere in the Swiss Alps and it turns out that HE KNEW HER. 

Now why would he know her?  Well, the two had been lovers -- before Kate -- and he had been present when she apparently _fell into a crevasse_ in a glacier up there in the Swiss Alps, disappeared therefore and her body had been unreachable, up until apparently today ...

Why would that be a concern to Geoffrey now?  Well, as the story unfolds it becomes increasingly clear that this woman, whose body had been trapped / frozen for over 45 years in that glacier, had been very important to Geoffrey, again BEFORE Kate, and MORE IMPORTANTLY KATE HAD NOT EVEN KNOWN ABOUT HER ... until NOW ... as she's planning this 45th anniversary party, probably THE LAST big party that the two of them were going to attend / remember together.

Now how is it possible that Kate would not have known about this lost previous love of her husband (of 45 years)??  

This is what I find _so unbelievable_ about this film, and why despite much acclaim by most movie critics (see above) I'm decidedly "less impressed."  I find it hard to believe that NEITHER Kate nor Geoffrey would have ANY FAMILY to speak of, or that Geoffrey would not have had FRIENDS that Kate would have inevitably met / gotten to know EVEN BEFORE GETTING MARRIED, who would have INEVITABLY MENTIONED this woman / flame of Geoffrey's past, even to say: "I'm so happy that Geoffrey found you Kate.  He was such a wreck after <so and so> died so tragically up there in the Alps ..."   

That this conversation had apparently NOT happened _even before_ Kate and Geoffrey had gotten married I find utterly unbelievable.  Further, trying to envision scenarios in which it becomes plausible that this conversation did not happen -- both Kate and Geoffrey hated their families, EVERYONE in their families and Geoffrey HAD NO FRIENDS AT ALL 'cept that woman who died somehow in those mountains and then Kate sometime afterwards -- makes me not exactly like either of the principal characters in this story.

So while I suppose that it's possible that a somewhat "elitist" liberal couple could fill a banquet hall with (retiring / retired) friends (but no family from either side) to celebrate their 45th anniversary ... I'm almost certain that I'd probably NOT like them much to begin with, and probably would roll-my-eyes with not particularly great surprise at learning that there proved to be "secrets" present (even to this day) between the two of them.

Sorry I'm not impressed here, not much impressed at all.


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