Emily Watson

  • Metroland (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) It’s often amusing to see almost obscure films resurface because they happen to star actors that later became much, much more famous. Case in point: the rather unremarkable Metroland, which plays with an uneasy mixture of British middle-aged married ennui juxtaposed with formative years nostalgia. The plot gets in motion when the comfortable, even boring life of a thirtysomething couple is upended by the return of a long-gone globetrotting friend back in London for a few days. Cue the flashbacks to their wild Parisian years. Not much of this narrative summary is all that promising, so the key to the film’s selection is in the casting: Christian Bale and Emily Watson as the married couple. Everything is a period piece (the flashbacks go from the 1970s London to the 1960s Paris, earning this film an honorary place alongside other May 1968 homages). and there’s a lot more sex and nudity than expected – in keeping with the spirit of 1960s France (or at least what people recall of it), it’s largely a film about letting the 1960s shake up boring mundanity. Bale is young and a bit bland here, but I was rather surprised to see Watson (not often the idea of a pin-up girl) looking much more attractive than usual here. As such, I suspect that both lead actors may have a fond spot for the film in their own private DVD collection – a reminder of what they looked like as up-and-coming actors plausibly starring in an erotic drama that concludes with a torrid reconciliation in bed. By the time the end credits roll on Metroland, you can understand why it’s still getting airtime twenty-five years later.

  • The Book Thief (2013)

    The Book Thief (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2014) At its most basic level, The Book Thief is about a girl living in a small German town during the Nazi regime: you can predict how well that’s going to go.  But beyond that, it seems as if most of the neat things about the film don’t add much to its foundation.  It’s fascinating, for instance, to discover that the story is narrated by Death itself… except that for all of the added depth that the narration brings (especially during the tacked-on epilogue), it doesn’t have much of an influence over the story itself.  I will gleefully defend any story that takes up reading as its cause… except that it, again, doesn’t seems to do much when set against a backdrop of World-War 2 Nazi Germany.  And yes, it’s great to see WW2 movies… except when it seems to be used to make point made quite eloquently elsewhere already. (Surely I can’t be the only one to have thought about The Reader.) The movie has its strong points: Sophie Nélisse is captivating as the titular heroine, (though there isn’t much book-stealing going on) Geoffrey Rush is warm and likable as the father-figure, while even Emily Watson gets a better role as the film develops her character.  Director Brian Percival ends up packaging a convincing portrait of life under the Nazis.  It’s skilfully made, touches upon many of my own personal leitmotivs… but it seems as if the ending comes too soon, prematurely cutting short a bunch of subplots, making them feel perfunctory or ordinary.  It ends without taking full advantage of its own strengths.  How strange.