Imogen Poots

  • I Kill Giants (2017)

    I Kill Giants (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2020) I am getting tired of the “imaginative protagonist escapes to imagined worlds because of a psychological trauma” trope, and this one is played to full effect in I Kill Giants. Our heroine is an eccentric, smart, lonely teenager who is having trouble coping with the terminal illness of her mother—in the absence of a father, the older sister is the one trying to keep the four siblings together, and she’s not able to do a good job of it. As a result, our protagonist escapes in fantasies in which she defends her small coastal town against giants come to destroy everything… among many other quirks of imagination that do absolutely nothing to endear her to her high-school classmates. The film plays a bit on the ambiguity between her fantasies and reality, so you can probably read the film both ways if you’re so inclined—but I think (counter-intuitively enough for me, given how prompt I am to reject any purely realistic interpretations) that the film is better if it’s entirely taking place in her mind. I Kill Giants does rest quite a bit on the lead performance of Madison Wolfe in the main role, with some assistance from Imogen Poots and Zoe Saldana in sympathetic adult role (with a small cameo from Jennifer Ehle). Special effects are used copiously to portray the protagonist’s inner mind. Part of my lack of enthusiasm for the result also comes from a too-close proximity with the very similar A Monster Calls—which at least lays its terminal illness cards on the table from the get-go, rather than treat it as some kind of mind-shaking plot twist. I still did not dislike the result, but that’s not quite the same thing as being ready to recommend it. I suppose that it will appeal to people looking for those kinds of liminal stories between reality and fantasy, with a strong melodramatic conclusion.

  • Black Christmas (2019)

    Black Christmas (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) Perhaps the best thing a remake can do is to stray from the original, especially if the original has a number of issues. I don’t particularly like the 1974 original Black Christmas, but that has a lot to do with it being a slasher (possibly the first slasher—a dubious Canadian contribution to film history) and me not liking slashers. I haven’t seen the similar 2006 remake, but this 2019 version strikes out on its own, barely holding on to the idea of a sorority under attack from a maniac. This version, written and directed by April Wolf and Sophia Takal, lives and breathes the #MeToo era to an often-caricatural degree, as our heroines are engaged in destroying patriarchy everywhere, from dead men’s busts to the English literature canon. It squarely leads to a feature-film-length denunciation of toxic masculinity that at least takes back some of the misogyny inherent in slasher movies. But the promise of flipping the genre on its head very quickly runs out of steam… if it has any steam to begin with: While Imogen Poots has some innate likability as the lead and Aleyse Shannon looks great, the writing often makes their characters come across as blunt mouthpieces for obvious sentiments. Worse yet is the film’s nosedive into outright supernatural elements in the third act, as if the entire patriarchy wasn’t enough of a formidable antagonist in the first place. Misogynists are clearly the new Nazis, as the film ends with an act of mass murder by the heroines that should at least make anyone pause at the disproportionate retribution of it—but then again those who were killed were eventually going to be nominated as right-wing judges, so the script clearly thinks they deserved it. It’s those excesses and quirks that bother me far more than they should—I should be on the film’s side (and the singing sequence is a great deal of empowering fun), but this Black Christmas overplays its cards in such a way that I’m not left with a lot of sympathy for the characters or the results. How weird is that? On the other hand, well, since I was expecting a straight-up remake of the 1974 original, I was certainly surprised at the twists and turns of the result, even if I can’t quite bring myself to like it.

  • Vivarium (2019)

    Vivarium (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) It’s not that Vivarium is entirely without promise—as the film starts, it quickly creates the off-kilter dreamlike aesthetics it’s going for, and gets its narrative going by trapping a young couple in a house where they’re asked to raise a child delivered to their door, along with all the necessities of life. But what could have been an interesting short feature soon turns into a repetitive, irritating blob. The eerie suburban satire turns into pointless SF tragedy with the kind of cyclical ending that puts off audiences and makes them ask why the film even existed in the first place. Creepy from the start and then even progressively creepier as it advances, Vivarium is not a film aiming for a happy ending (or even much of an ending), practically begging viewers to dislike the result. Jesse Eisenberg isn’t bad as the male lead, but Imogen Poots gets the much better role here as the film’s true protagonist. Despite a budget that occasionally shows its seams, there’s some visual style here, even with cheap but consistent special effects. While Vivarium wants to be surprising, viewers with the fortitude to make it to the end will only see a circular narrative that feels both trite and stretched-out: no character development, no happiness, no enlightenment, just Sisyphus-like futility with a different cast.

  • That Awkward Moment (2014)

    That Awkward Moment (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2016) There’s a sub-genre of movies that could be called (for lack of a better name) “forgettable romantic comedies featuring up-and-coming movie stars”, and That Awkward Moment is a perfect addition to that canon. Its most noteworthy feature is that it stars Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan and Zack Efron—while the third is already a star in his own way, Teller and Jordan both have other movies (Creed, Whiplash) that hint at their true acting talent. Here, they’re not actually asked to do any dramatic heavy lifting: the film coasts a long time on their basic charm, even as their characters aren’t particularly admirable. Another romantic comedy for men that celebrates immaturity and boorishness, That Awkward Moment is perhaps best appreciated as a fake-anthropological study of young males on the cusp of romantic responsibility, although by the time the Hollywood process is done with the film, there’s nearly nothing authentic left to see. Various bits and pieces work; other bits and pieces are just puzzling or unpleasant given the casual misogyny of the script. Imogen Poots and Mackenzie Davis do well as the female matchups for the male protagonists, and as usual in these kinds of films they’re far more level-headed and sensible than our nominal main characters. It doesn’t amount to much: by the end, That Awkward Moment is slight enough to escape making any lasting impression other than a vague feeling that this isn’t going to be one of the films that Jordan or Teller will highlight once they become authentic megastars.