Films

Me Before You (2016)

Films

Wtf did you just do, Me Before You???? What are you actually doing?? This film is a hot mess. There is not one minute of it that’s not completely contrived, shallow and ridiculous. Saying that, I enjoyed it wholeheartedly. My sister put this on a few nights ago and I was immediately hooked. She wasn’t too happy with me by the end due to my incessant quipping, but it was just too silly to leave alone.

I’d first like to say that Emilia Clarke is, of course, adorable. I always enjoy her, and she was lovely in her role here as manic pixie dream girl Lou. Unfortunately, Emilia didn’t get a chance to show any range at all because this film is a fluffy, saccharine shit show. She gets angry well, but when it comes to tears she’s not very convincing, and when even the characters can’t bring themselves to genuine emotion at the admittedly sad-but-badly executed story line, there’s not much hope for the audience (with the exception of my sister who started crying before the saddest bit even happened). Back to Lou, I’m not sure she has much more going on than just being quirky, which is a shame because Emilia seems to be typecast nowadays as characters of varying levels of manic pixie. Can we give her something decent to work with, please?

Sam Claflin is also good here, but as a testament to how woke we have all become, my first comment upon seeing him was “why didn’t they cast a quadriplegic actor?” and the question still stands. We need more representation for people with disabilities!!! This is one of those things I struggle to unsee nowadays. Aside from this, Will is fine as a character and Claflin and Clarke are cute enough together. The main problem I had with the film was the lack of development of any of the relationships we are meant to care about. Will goes from despising Lou and her perky personality to being pretty f****** chummy with her after they watch a film together on a rainy day. Before we know it, she’s sitting on his knee while he spins around the dance floor in his wheelchair. I just didn’t believe it, so I couldn’t take it seriously. There’s no real basis to their bond – they’re just around each other a lot and for this reason we’re expected to believe they’re head over heels in love? Then, Lou’s supposedly close relationship with her family. They want to show us a super tight-knit, quirky family and again I just didn’t believe it, especially at the end when Lou made a decision she knew would upset them deeply and we never saw any of them again or found out what happened. It just made no sense at all and it was disappointing. So, she just sacked off her entire family for someone she’s known for a few months, not giving a shit about their feelings? Nah. Without spoiling anything, the ethics of what Will arguably did to Lou are also completely skated over. All I could think when he did his big reveal on their nice holiday was wow you’re kind of a dickhead??? Why let her get involved with you??? It just didn’t sit well with me. This is a very sensitive subject, and it wasn’t handled super well in my opinion.

A couple of quick notes – Lou’s outfits were adorable, but there was rather too much Ed Sheeran for my liking. Also, I know Patrick was kind of a dick but did anyone else feel sorry for him? Like what the f*** happened there??

There’s not much more to say about this film. It is highly entertaining and superbly cheesy and kind of cute in some parts. Usually I’m a sucker for a love story and it doesn’t take a lot to make me cry, but I was dry-eyed on this occasion. Maybe it’s because I wanted to be a girl watching a ridiculous film with somebody way more emotionally invested than I was, just a few minutes more.

*you can watch this on Netflix. I know this isn’t a rave review, but go and see it anyway. It’s a good way to piss away an evening.

Escape from Pretoria (2020)

Films

Hi, it’s me again. Obsessive Daniel Radcliffe fangirl. I didn’t plan for this to be a blog consisting exclusively of reviews of films with Daniel Radcliffe in them, but we move. Me and boyfriend watched this one on a whim and it was very fun. It’s on Amazon Prime and it’s pretty front and centre at the moment so it shouldn’t be hard to find. Definitely wouldn’t have watched this one alone- at 23 years old I am still inexplicably drawn to all things pink, sparkly, fluffy, prom, etc.

Escape from Pretoria is based on the true story of three political prisoners who escape from a prison in South Africa. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like; I can’t say I’ve ever watched a prison escape film or TV programme before. Although there were a few moments depicting racism in South Africa during the apartheid, the whole issue was largely ignored and there was a lot more focus on the practicalities of escaping from prison, so if you’re looking for something historical with a lot of contextual stuff, you’re looking in the wrong place. This is quite literally purely about the escape, and that’s not a complaint – it was dope. As exciting as the film was, something that bothered me a little was that it’s a little vague how Tim (Daniel Radcliffe) actually manages to execute the whole escape thing. There’s not much explanation of how the flying f*** he manages to make exact copies of about 7 different keys out of wood.

Apart from this though, the film is just really fun to watch. There’s some mad tense parts where Tim is testing out the keys and things keep going wrong which are pretty good set-ups for the final sequence. The tone of the film is not entirely clear; there are parts that I think are meant to be raucously funny that don’t really land because a lot of it is pretty serious. When they wanted me to laugh I unfortunately just didn’t see the funny side because I was too concerned that my beloved Daniel would get caught and I would have a reaction similar to my ugly crying during Jungle. Still, the attempt is there and is a nice little break from all the palm-sweating.

To conclude, you should go and watch it. You really don’t have anything to lose because its very fun and IMO Daniel’s South African accent really isn’t that bad, but who knows – maybe I’m just a huge fangirl.

PS. read about the story behind the film after you watch it; it is pretty interesting.

*watch on Amazon Prime.

Jungle (2017)

Films

Before I start any discussion on this film, I’d like to state that I will never be watching it again. Not because it was bad, but because I dehydrated myself from crying. I’m definitely open to input from others; am I just a sad and obsessive Daniel Radcliffe/Harry Potter fan? Was it not really that sad? Was my lengthy outburst just part of a lockdown meltdown? Very difficult to tell. It was my boyfriend’s idea to watch it and I don’t know if I can forgive him.

It’s a survival film based on a true story. Daniel plays the Israeli traveler Yossi Ghinsberg who is enthusiastically (recklessly) backpacking in Bolivia, hoping to travel into the Amazon rain forest. This idea proves to be very ill advised to say the least, especially because him and his two new backpacking friends meet a mysterious Austrian man who claims to have superior knowledge about the rain forest and announces he can take them in there to find gold (?) and that’s who they choose as their guide. This is where the action really starts. Some parts of the first half are like an upbeat travel movie and there are wholesome scenes of the foursome meeting and hanging out with some villagers which are pretty pleasant to watch. The thing is that obviously this can’t continue and before we know it the Austrian man, Karl, is shooting a monkey down from a tree for them to roast and eat. He passes Yossi an arm to chew on. Whilst this is all pretty disturbing, the sound effects in this part are OUTRAGEOUS and I managed to find the funny side of what would eventually be a film possibly more upsetting than Titanic.

Things start to go downhill quickly as it comes to light that the lads aren’t very well prepared for the trek. One of the backpackers, Marcus, seems to think loafers are an appropriate choice of footwear for hiking in the forest and as you can imagine this doesn’t really pan out well for him. His feet are absolutely destroyed before long and it starts to become clear that he’s not going to be able to walk the trip as planned. They build a raft to travel down the river, and the American backpacker, Kevin, gets too big for his boots and disobeys Karl’s orders thinking he knows better, putting them all in danger. This is when I started to feel very annoyed. Unsurprisingly, Kevin and Karl have a fall out and Karl announces that he’ll go no further with them; he’s going to do the three day walk back to La Paz. Kevin and Yossi are determined to carry on and it’s decided that there’s no way Marcus can do much more on his broken feet. Subsequently, a frankly ridiculous decision is made; Marcus and Karl will walk back to the village, and Kevin and Yossi will carry on down the river on the raft, having been warned profusely by Karl NOT TO GO INTO THE CANYON BECAUSE IT IS VERY DANGEROUS. (Note: I want to clarify here that whilst researching the true story, it came to light that the film interpretation may not have been completely accurate so I’m not judging any of the real people involved, just the fake ones.)

From here, things go from bad to f****** devastating. Quite obviously, they end up in the canyon and Yossi gets washed up on some rocks with no map or backpack. Saying much more about the plot of the film would ruin it, so I’ll talk about the other things instead. Some critics felt Daniel Radcliffe didn’t have a lot to work with and that he wasn’t able to do much with the material but I think my emotional reaction proves otherwise. If he wasn’t any good and I wasn’t invested in his character’s survival I don’t think I would have been quite as upset as I was. He manages to be utterly heartbreaking and vulnerable one minute and tenacious the next making him a perfect hero, but it can’t be ignored that the entire second half of the film is utter torture porn. So many bad things happen consecutively that as I was watching it I found myself wanting to beg the directors to give him a break. If you like incredibly tense survival films, have no personal connection to Daniel Radcliffe and you’re not upset by gross body stuff (the mangled feet aren’t the only thing to contend with; I’ll say one word – worms) you might like Jungle. The rain forest looks beautiful, the score is good and the ending is oddly uplifting. It’s definitely not all bad, but I don’t think my little heart can take seeing my childhood hero emaciated and hallucinating. Add lockdown into the mix, and it’s a disaster waiting to happen.

*On the off chance you want to put yourself through this, you can rent it on Amazon Prime for 99p, or buy it for £1.99 if you feel crunching through questionably-cooked monkey flesh has lots of rewatchability potential.