Tag: Celia Imrie

Now that it is February, we have the potential to get some good films again. Split was a January fluke, I am sure everything else that I didn’t see is bad. But this is February!

Last February we were blessed with Hail, Caesar! And before that we got The Lego Movie! So there is a lot of hope for finding the special film in the crowd, and A Cure For Wellness is carrying that flag (along with John Wick: Chapter 2).

I first heard about this film in December when some of my critic friends saw it at Butt-numb-a-thon, but all of their lips were silent as to why they enjoyed it. A mysterious film with a lot of creepy moments. Let’s do it.

Water? Nothing has ever been creepy about water.

Mr. Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) is a young, spry, wall street worker who just got a promotion after closing a big account. And he is ambitious. And he has also cheated on some of his deals. This does not look good, especially when his company is on the verge of a big merger. So the board gives him a task. To head to the Swiss Alps, to a little spa, where their CEO (Adrian Schiller, maybe? God, I hope it was him), has decided to extend his vacation forever and never return home. He hats Wall Street now.

So Lockhart heads to the spa, hoping to convince him right away. But he misses visitor hours, gets distracted by a mysterious woman (Mia Goth), and next thing he knows his driver (Ivo Nandi) gets into a car accident. Lockhart wakes up in the spa, a cast over his leg, with a spa retreat seemingly forced on himself as well in order for him to heal.

While there, Lockhart spends most of his time looking for and failing to talk to his CEO. Trying to discover why the water seemingly is addictive here. And wrap it all up with ancient legends of the place! Fun!

Also starring Jason Isaacs, Celia Imrie, and Judith Hoersch.

Oh man, it is so beautiful it is making me flip my shit.

A Cure For Wellness is not your normal “scary film.” At its core it is a psychological thriller meant to make you feel unnerved throughout its over two hour run time. Every shot is beautiful, showing off the lush Swiss (Well, it was filmed in Germany) landscapes and mountainsides. Rooms uniform to make you feel claustrophobic. Uniformity in the actions of the patrons. Long hallways, identical doors, and a seemingly labyrinth of corridors, the spa is both haunting and beautiful.

The mystery it weaves is a central figure and one that will have you picking up the clues it drops, the smaller references along the way, to build the complete story. Why the spa does what it does, how it does it, and our overall plot is wonderfully crafted and told to make sure you get enough for the average viewer to understand it all.

But in the last 15-20 minutes, they decide that instead of keeping it a smart film, they will dumb everything down, hold the viewers hand and make sure repetitively everyone understands ever little aspect. And it is its biggest failing point. It went from an intelligent film to a tacked on ending that feels normal for Hollywood films but is jarring for this one. It told us too much and also made sure there was no mystery left. It had a conclusion, the story is over, and it could have had many better endings if they just tacked off parts. It reminds me of Don’t Breathe in that regard.

DeHaan and (actors) give great performances. They really dive into these characters and no one is half assing this film. It is a pretty darn good film that people should see if they want to feel unnerved and can handle some body damage horror stuff. I had some pretty extreme cringes during this film, but they are all done in a way that serves a purpose and isn’t just for gore sake.

They just need to know when to end it.

I have been actively stalling watching The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It used to be so easy, all I had to do was say, “Oh sorry Cathy. I haven’t seen the first one yet, that would be improper!” Cathy isn’t a real person, but the point is real. I was golden.

And then I fucking did it. I watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Part of me was feeling sentimental and I wanted to see Dev Patel since The Newsroom was over. And since Chappie disappointed, that was my easiest solution.

You may not remember, but both Chappie and TSBEMH came out to theaters on the exact same date, both featuring Patel. So logically, one would assume there is no way both of his movies on the same day would be a disappointment. Right?

At least the dancing is already better in this one than Chappie.

Since the last film, there are two major updates worth noting.

One, Sonny (Patel) is finally getting married to Sunaina (Tina Desai), yay!

Two, the hotel wants to expand! They want to make a second hotel, they just need investors. Muriel (Maggie Smith) is basically co-running the hotel at this point too, so she is involved with that. The main investor is going to send an undercover guest to see how the run their ship before bringing the cash, so they have to be on guard and make sure everything runs swell. What’s that? Two people randomly coming to stay out of nowhere (Richard Gere, Tamsin Greig). Gee, I wonder who could be the undercover person!

Back to the marriage plot, because Sonny is apparently a spastic piece of shit, he is way too over hyped to make the new guest feel amazing, to get the deal, that he ignores his wife and wedding preparations. Even worse, he lashes out on Kushal (Shazad Latif), who is back in town, because he thinks Kushal sucks and actually thinks he is trying to take his fiance away from him. Not that he does a damn thing about it but mope uncontrollably.

Ahem, we also have a bunch of returning people as well. We have Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup, and Diana Hardcastle. I could tell you their plots as well, but then you would be drowned in information and well, not everything should be explained.

Including Gere probably doubled the entire movie budget.

Now that I have the nifty stars on top of the review, you can already tell I am disappointed in this movie. Which is a shame, because I gave an average rating to the first film and definitely believed in my head that the second movie would do better. It was like an origins story for a superhero. A lot of times the second film can be better, because we don’t have to deal with the character before they are a hero, they can be a hero the whole film!

No instead we got a couple main plot lines that just were not good. As I already mentioned, I hated Sonny in this film. In the first, he was a stubborn, lovable, idiot. In this film, he is obsessed, jealous, and a fool. He almost does nothing right. I have to say almost, because by the end of the film he does a few right things, because is the type of film to end on a happy note, not one that will end in failure and defeat. It is obvious going into it.

However these plot lines are just so dull, outside of Sonny’s character ruining it. As for the other stars, none of their plots are compelling either. Someone cheating, someone deciding on who to love, someone who can’t remember scripts, and someone who wants to make sure he doesn’t accidentally hire an assassin. Okay, that last bit was a little bit amusing, but that was it.

TSBEMH was a completely forgettable movie. I hope they don’t make a third, and I hope Patel gets better movies soon.

If I had a nickle for every time I decided to not yet watch The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I’d probably have at least $1.50 by now. I remember seeing it in the movie rental store Family Video, back when rental stores existed where I live. I would walk by the B section, glance at it, and mumble “Not today.”

And then they announced the sequel. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I saw a trailer, not actually knowing what the first one was about. Then I realized I had to hurry and watch the first one by early March, or else I wouldn’t get to see the sequel in theaters!

And here we are in July. I can say not getting to see the sequel in theaters was apparently a perfectly acceptable decision!

Much like my stereotype of the characters in the film, I would get to it when I get to it, dagnabbit.

Sonny (Dev Patel) has an idea. He is going to take his inherited family hotel and turn it into a lush amazing retirement home for Americans and British people to come to, to die. He is the third son and no one expects anything of him. His mom (Lillete Dubey) just wants him to come home for an arranged marriage, and doesn’t want him to marry Sunaina (Tina Desai). Too bad. He has dreams.

And this group of old people are his guinea pigs. That sounds sadistic, but really the film is about these gentle people ready to die.

Like Jean (Penelope Wilton) and Douglas (Bill Nighy), who have lost most of their money due to investing in their offspring and need some cheap place to go. And Evelyn (Judi Dench) who needs to sell off her house to pay off debts left by her late husband and needs somewhere cheap to go. She also is our blogger and narrator! And Muriel (Maggie Smith), who actually hates India but needs somewhere cheap to go for hip replacement surgery.

The theme here being people who want to go someplace cheap and far away for reasons.

Unless you are Graham (Tom Wilkinson), who retired suddenly and went back to India where he grew up for secret reasons. And finally we have Madge (Celia Imrie) and Norman (Ronald Pickup), looking for love and youth. But not young love, don’t be creepy.

This could be the most exciting falcon punch warm up.

The best part of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is that it went exactly as I expected and thus, my delay of watching the film seems justified. Sure, one could argue I forced the movie to be as good as my brain let it be, but I gave it as fair of a shake as I would give most films I know nothing about.

At times, the film was touching, at times I smiled a bit, but I didn’t find it to be great in either the drama or the comedy regards. Tom Wilkinson has the best plot, hands down, and some of the plots don’t feel like I should have even mentioned them in the plot details. But that would be harsh to ignore a couple of the main cast members. After Wilkinson, I enjoyed Patel’s story line and thought the Nighy/Wilton plot was unique enough. Everything else was closer to a miss than an barely hit for me.

If anything, this movie just has too much going on in it. There are eight residents of the hotel, only a couple that have overlapping plot points for their own journeys, AND the owner of the hotel with his own story. So much going on, crammed into two hours, and I couldn’t connect with all the characters. Having so many people makes it feel like they are shooting with a shotgun, hoping the spread would hit enough people to make enough people love the film.

I do think a sequel can be better though. We will have established characters, some with finished plot lines from the first film, so they are easier to understand allowing for even newer characters to take the spotlight. The movie finishes pretty damn average, but it does lay down enough foundation for better films down the line.