THE SHOW (2020)

 

A man's search for a stolen artifact leads him to the haunted town filled with Voodoo gangsters, masked adventurers, Depression-era private eyes, and violent chiaroscuro women.

Alan Moore is known, among other things, as the writer of many comics such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta, Prometheus, Watchmen, Batman: The Killing Joke, and The Swamp Thing. The Show is based on the works of Alan Moore, specifically the short film series Show Pieces that Moore worked on with Mitch Jenkins (who has also returned to direct this piece). With returning characters and continuations of the pre-existing series history, if Show Pieces is not something you are familiar with, you are in for an unusual experience.

The Show isn't completely inaccessible without knowledge of the world ahead of viewing, but it is certainly an advantage. While the piece spends most of its runtime with exposition and heavy-handed monologue, the world is full of weird and wonderful characters; all with their own peculiar and wonderful powers and abilities, creating an overload of information to take in with little disclosure on how relevant or necessary that knowledge is to the narrative of the film.

With so much information needed for the convoluted plot and a large amount of misdirection and red herrings, The Show is awkwardly artistic and leads the audience down a rabbit hole of unrelenting nonsense. Lacking focus, the film has very little in terms of a narrative direction, simply leading its protagonists passively through a series of experiences and introductions where more information is fed to them until the final reveal. There is a certain level of charm, and the creativity is undeniable, but the convoluted plot will give the audience a hard time keeping up, and the rapid introduction and discarding of characters will provide the audience nothing to hook into or care about. Riding the line between absurd nonsense and intellectual dissonance, the deep line-up of characters are unfortunately stuck with nothing significant to do.

In a mysterious world of eccentricities, outrageousness, and fantastical personalities, our lead never manages to hold enough charisma to keep the interest of the audience. Motives remain unknown, the lines between reality and fiction intertwine, and Dennis the Menace is running around with as much control as a plastic bag on the set of American Beauty; simply along for the ride. While it lacks focus, pacing, and charisma, the peculiarities and obscenities are reminiscent of the unfiltered mind of a child, with the ideology that all ideas are good ideas. The Show is so far from predictable that it still keeps the audience in their seats, if for no other reason than to see how weird this world can be. 

The Show is in cinemas from December 16, 2021

ROSE PLAYS JULIE (2019)

 

In this intimate exploration of identity, trauma, and power, a young woman seeks out her birth mother, inadvertently triggering a string of events that change both their lives.

Every once in a while, you come across a film that appears to tick all of the boxes. It explores a dark or controversial topic, it avoids unnatural lighting and exuberant cinematography, it prefers to utilize silence over dialogue, in fact from a critic's point of view, Rose Plays Julie would be an ideal dramatic film. When you look at the film outside of the lens of judging it on the quality of its parts, you quickly realize that the effect of the parts combined doesn't create something spectacular. Not even on par. Rose Plays Julie has everything it needs, but a critical element turns what should have been a classic, into a bore.

The premise of the film has solid dramatic foundations with a journey of self-identity; a search for her birth parents. An unexpected piece of information knocks the film off of its tracks and sends it off on a tangent away from drama, towards the crime and thriller genres. It never quite makes it there, however, with the pacing coming across like a game of golf; moments of energy separated by long periods of silence.

From a cinematography perspective, the film is well-composed, with slow push-ins and push-backs highlighting the emotional cues of the script. The use of natural lighting (or lack thereof, in many cases) and cold colour-palette give the film a grounded and authentic atmosphere, which turns eerie considering the subject matter.

The issues with the film come from one element though; the casting. Our main protagonist (played by Ann Skelly) simply lacks any form of charisma or emotional content. Rose lives in a state of shock, rarely closing her mouth, and spends so much time staring into nothingness, that it creates a dull and repetitive feel that garners diminishing returns as the cinematographer pushes in and pulls back again and again. In a world that is largely devoid of people, where the streets are empty and the buildings unused, the personality and charm of the film relies entirely on the personality and charm of the acting team. 

The film is so full of supposed emotional contemplation that it completely stalls any attempt at developing its protagonist. In fact, the film isn't even about Rose (or Julie), the story revolves around her mother, Ellen (played by Orla Brady). Rose doesn't even get a resolution to her identity crisis. Brady is the emotional anchor of the film, around which the entire film's plot revolves around, whose performance is the shining beacon of hope in the entire 100-minute runtime. Casting woes continue with the casting of Aidan Gillen. Anyone of the millions of people who have seen his performance in Game Of Thrones will struggle to hide their lack of surprise as to his role in the film. Realistically a poor choice for the role, when the actor has been so heavily typecast.

The premise is dark, uncomfortable, and unsettling, but the exploration of the topic leaves a lot to be desired. With one-note characters, the direction of the film is predictable, with extended moments of contemplation falling on deaf ears when the moment provides nothing for the audience to ponder. the film takes three different types of people with unique forms of alter egos and then proceeds to do little with them. If you enjoy slow films, this could be worth a watch for Brady's performance alone, but if a lack of pacing is a deal-breaker, then it may pay to give this a miss.

Rose Plays Julie is in cinemas from December 9, 2021