Rosamund Pike

  • I Care a Lot (2020)

    I Care a Lot (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, March 2021) Even the most cynical “OK Boomer” critics will have a hard time not getting incensed over I Care a Lot’s protagonist in the opening moments of the film, as it shows a hardened “caretaker” deliberately engineering the takeover of a retired woman’s life in order to lock her up in a retirement home with no communication privileges, and liquidate her assets for profit. All legal, all ethical, she maintains — but as the attempted assault that begins the film shows, it’s a reprehensible racket. Rosamund Pike, in full-blown ice queen mode, truly sells the character and, along the way, earns our complete enmity. If you’re still around after that infuriating opening, things get far more interesting when it becomes obvious that the charming old lady that was taken away from her own life is revealed to be the mother of a ruthless crime boss (Peter Dinklage, quite good), who stops at little in order to get his mom back and ruin the life of the protagonist. As the responses and counter-responses escalate, we’re left hoping that no one will be left standing by the end of the film — while the homicidal mob boss is a terrible human being, our retiree-exploiting protagonist feels even worse. Alas, I Care a Lot has its own ideas about who should be the hero of this story, and it doesn’t earn itself any favour by giving all the breaks to its sociopathic protagonist cloaking herself behind gendered rhetoric. I know, I know — anti-heroes are in at the core of black comedies, and it does build to an ironic comeuppance of sorts. Still, I’m left more annoyed and unsatisfied by the result — I’d have plenty to say about cinematic amorality and how it’s now frequently presented as a progressive triumph when it bolsters traditionally downtrodden demographic segments, but I’m going to keep poking at that thesis until I get something more useful than reactionary out of it. In the meantime, what else to say? I Care a Lot is competent filmmaking from writer-director J. Blakeson with a pair of great performances at its centre, but any film that builds itself up on pure hatred for its protagonist shouldn’t be surprised if it finds itself in the cold.

  • Radioactive (2019)

    Radioactive (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) I was, really, really primed to like Radioactivity. I’ve always liked the story of Marie Curie, and I’ve liked much of director Marjane Satrapi’s work in different media. But the result steadily slips sideways the longer it goes on, to a point where I can’t really recommend the results. This is the third film about Marie Curie that I’ve seen in the span of a year, and if it’s easily the more technically polished, it ranks a distant third behind the classic 1943 Greer Garson biopic, and the far more comedic 1997 Les Palmes de M. Schutz. Proudly going for the obvious angle of presenting Curie as a feminist icon, Radioactive overplays its hand to the point of becoming unlikable, distorting the historical records and losing itself in tangents. The entire film is a flashback from Curie’s death that eventually flashforwards to events occurring decades later, and while the effect isn’t confusing, it’s scattered in a way that diminishes the film. The romance between Curie and her husband gets far less screen time considering that at least half the film is set after her famous discoveries, and the film sufficiently deviates from the record to have Curie physically assault her husband in a rage that has no basis in history. To be clear: I am not opposed to movies taking liberties with history (as was the case in the two other films I keep comparing Radioactive to), but when a movie about a scientist released in information-rich 2019 starts messing with fact in order to hammer thematic points that are already perfectly obvious, my disenchantment overweighs whatever admiration I can have for other aspects of the film. Technically, it’s up to the state of the art, using CGI and editing to blur one period with another, move back and forth in time and present her heroine in the best possible light. Rosamund Pike is really good in the lead role, but the film shouts its themes over her performance to an extent that diminishes the good work she does. It’s a deep paradox that while Radioactive is all about Marie Curie, she’s far less likable or admirable here than in the other two movies about her.

  • A Private War (2018)

    A Private War (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need war correspondents. In the meantime… we do—they’re the ones to go toward danger and tell us what’s really happening. A Private War does tell us quite a bit about the profession in portraying the life and death of Marie Colvin, a veteran foreign correspondent who found herself in many of the world’s hottest spots between 2001 and 2012. Rosamund Pike turns in an impressive performance as Colvin, frizzy hair, low voice and eyepatch adding much to a complex character study. The private war of the title refers to Colvin’s own struggles with what she was experiencing—trying to self-medicate through alcohol, eventually spending some time institutionalized in an attempt to overcome PTSD. And yet always returning to the hot spots despite the losses along the way. The film clearly frames itself as an elegy, and it does build to a seemingly inevitable death while covering the Syrian civil war. As an exploration of the work of a war correspondent, it’s gripping—thanks to good special effects, the film can afford to have numerous scenes taking us through unimaginable death and destruction. Still, much of the film revolves back around Pike’s performance: she’s utterly unrecognizable from many of her softer, gentler performances here and I suspect that the film will live on as one of her finest. It’s an impressive tribute to an impressive journalist, and it’s a shame that A Private War didn’t find a commercial audience upon initial release.

  • Entebbe aka 7 Days in Entebbe (2018)

    Entebbe aka 7 Days in Entebbe (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) The 1976 Entebbe Raid is a real-life dramatic event well worth a film adaptation, but at the end of 7 Days in Entebbe I’m left nonplussed at the approach chosen in dramatizing the true story. From the get-go, the choice to humanize the hijackers (through film leads Daniel Brühl and Rosamund Pike) is puzzling—since you can’t really accidentally hijack a plane and such hijackings depend on the willingness to commit mass murder, their demise at the end of the film is nothing to shed tears over. The film ends in even more dubious thematic territory by tying the hijacking to Middle East conflicts and adopting a cheap rhetoric of both-side anti-violence—and makes the whole thing even more dumbfounding through an action sequence intercut with an interpretative dance performance. Saying that the climax is nothing like you’ve ever seen before is not a compliment in this case. Still, director José Padilha aims high (even as he misses his target) and can depend on Brühl and Pike as remarkable performers. The execution is slick and the real events are credibly portrayed, even if the film is remarkably annoying when it keeps repeating its obvious points over and over again. It doesn’t build to anything except a confused, frustrating and barely adequate thriller inspired by true events. I’m reminded of Truffault’s “no war movie is anti-war,” quote—there’s a contradiction in 7 Days in Entebbe in wanting to draw us in through the promise of violent retribution and then immediately decrying said retribution. Sure, you can make the statement—but you’re mocking your own efforts at portraying it, and exasperating everyone who was lured in.

  • Hostiles (2017)

    Hostiles (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) On paper, Hostiles has some exceptional elements to play with—written and directed by Scott Cooper, starring Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike and Wes Studi, with a story that follows an army officer escorting a Cheyenne chief across dangerous territory in the 1890s. In intent, it’s determined to be a revisionist western, with an adequately nuanced look at the Native American characters. Bale, Pike and Studi are as good as ever, while Cooper gets some great landscapes to showcase along the journey. Plus, there are pre-stardom roles for Timothée Chalamet, Jesse Plemons and Jonathan Majors. But while the result is a respectable dramatic western, it’s not a great film, nor is it as great as it thinks it is—and this is hardly the first Cooper film to suffer from that kind of hubris. The elements are there, but something is missing from the result. Maybe fun, maybe humility.

  • Beirut (2018)

    Beirut (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) Catch me on a bad day, and I will talk your ears off about how grown-up adult cinema has been evacuated from the multiplexes and shuffled off to art-house cinema, minor streaming releases and the corners of the cable channels. I’m not even talking about meditative character studies, here—I mean geopolitical thrillers such as Beirut, heavy in suspense and action but somehow a bit more complex than the save-the-world Manicheism of modern blockbuster films. Beirut doesn’t do anything outlandish—it simply takes us back to early-1980s Lebanon, near the peak of the unbelievable civil war that took it from a world-class city to loosely arranged rubble. In this complex environment, with half a dozen factions fighting each other under the watchful eye of two superpowers and the powder-keg environment of next-door neighbour Israel, comes a negotiator being asked to secure the release of an American hostage. There are several complications, not the least of them being that the protagonist knows both parties to the hostage exchange and is returning to the city ten years after tragic events involving him. Beirut has the heft of a good thriller, with a flawed world-weary protagonist unsure of who’s trying to help or kill him in an environment where there are no certitudes. Every year, you can read about a dozen similar novels … but you’ll be lucky to find even one movie with that kind of ambition. Of course, there’s Tony Gilroy writing the script, one of the few Hollywood screenwriters with the clout and chops to tackle such a project. Director Brad Anderson has an uneven filmography, but he handles the material well, backed with capable production design taking us credibly to 1982 Beirut. More crucially, he can also depend on a good script and decent actors: Jon Hamm is great as the bruised negotiator, Rosamund Pike is fine as his local liaison (she even gets to have some well-delivered French dialogue) and there’s Dean Norris with a hairpiece in a secondary role. The ending is suitably satisfying—with characters more or less getting what they wanted, but with the impending irony of the 1983 bombing just around the corner. The plot is a full order of magnitude more complex than the usual blockbuster, so it will take some sustained attention to follow. Beirut is the kind of film in my wheelhouse, the kind of film I wish I’d see more often. It’s not a slam-bang thriller, but it’s engrossing enough to be worth a look—especially if the modern blockbusters have let you down.

  • Return to Sender (2015)

    Return to Sender (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, June 2016) Thrillers don’t need a lot to plot to work, but there’s an acceptable minimum of twists and turns that have to be met and Return to Sender never manages to have more than two plot beats in mind. Rosamund Pike stars as a likable nurse violently assaulted in her own home. As you may expect, the rest of the film is very much about vengeance, even though the film may try to hide that fact. Much of the last act of the film is obvious and linear, without the slightest twist to keep things interesting. It doesn’t help that the film moves at a languid pace, easily allowing viewers to piece together what’s going to happen before it actually happens. As a result, Return to Sender is a remarkably dull film even for a dark vengeance thriller. The film’s low budget and pedestrian directing doesn’t help. Despite those significant flaws, it’s easy to see why Pike took the role; the film is centred around her, and there are eerie parallels between her character here and in Gone Girl, bordering on typecasting. She easily remains the best thing about Return to Sender, running circles around the other actors (well, except Nick Nolte as her father) Pike completists (not something to be ashamed of) may want to take a look at the film, especially now that it’s on Netflix. Everyone else, though, may have better things to watch.

  • Gone Girl (2014)

    Gone Girl (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2015) While I like director David Fincher’s first movies more than his last few ones (Seven, The Game and Fight Club are classics; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo remake less so), the world at large seems to disagree, his stature having grown steadily since the beginning of his career.  With Gone Girl, though, it looks as if I’m re-joining the critical consensus: It’s a terrific thriller, unsentimental and merciless with a lot of depth along the way.  It starts innocently enough, as a man reports the suspicious disappearance of his wife.  As the plot unspools, twists appear.  Many twists, eventually leaving characters as aghast as viewers.  Saying more would be a disservice, except to praise both Ben Affleck and especially Rosamund Pike for performances that play off their existing persona (in Affleck’s case) or their lack of it (in Pike’s case).  Fincher directs the film with quasi-alien precision, which feels just about right when Gone Girl reveals itself to be an acid commentary on marriage.  A genre-aware script by Gillian Flynn (based on her own novel) makes Gone Girl a terrific thriller, but nearly everyone involved in the film bring their best work: In smaller roles, Tyler Perry delivers a memorable turn as a mesmerizing defense lawyer, while Carrie Coon transforms a small confidante role into something far more interesting.  Still, it’s director Fincher who remains the star of the show, effectively presenting his set-pieces with a lot of technical polish.  Gone Girl may not be a pleasant film, but it’s almost impossible to stop watching from its intriguing opening to its nightmarish conclusion.  It’s just not (really not) a date movie.

  • The World’s End (2013)

    The World’s End (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, January 2014) Given the quasi-classic status that Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz enjoy in my own personal ranking, I was waiting for The World’s End with loaded expectations: As the concluding entry in the so-called Cornetto trilogy, would it be as funny, as tightly-written, as visually innovative and as purely enjoyable as its two predecessors? Well, while it may not be as hilarious as Shaun of the Dead, nor as satisfying as Hot Fuzz, The World’s End definitely holds its own as a great piece of genre moviemaking. A boozy nostalgic comedy that eventually evolves into something far more outrageous (with a daring ending that crams another film’s worth of content in the last five minutes), The World’s End is perhaps most impressive for the interplay between structure and surface, as written signs comment upon the action, as the story is outlined in-text as a flashback before re-occurring during the film, or for the various (sometimes less-than-pleasant) questions raised by the ending. There is a lot of depth here, and some of it may not be entirely apparent at a first viewing. Still, The World’s End is no mere puzzle box: it works well on a surface level, whether it’s the actors reunited for the occasion (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost interchanging their hero/cad roles, obviously, but also Martin Freeman, the lovely Rosamund Pike, and a glorified cameo by Pierce Brosnan), the impressive fight choreography, the ironic dialogue and Wright’s usual attempt to push film grammar in new directions. While a first viewing leaves a bit unsettled, The World’s End steadily grows in stature as you reflect on it –another characteristic it shares with its predecessors. Mission accomplished for Wright/Pegg/Frost, then, as the wait begins for their next films.

  • Barney’s Version (2010)

    Barney’s Version (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theatres, January 2011) As much as I like supporting Canadian Content (and there’s nothing more CanCon than an adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s last novel, filmed and set in Montréal), there’s something just subtly off about Barney’s Version.  It’s an accumulation of small annoyances that damage the film, from a scatter-shot episodic narrative to flat performances to overly sentimental moments.  I’ll be the first to note that presenting forty years of a man’s life on-screen isn’t the simplest screenwriting challenge: As an adaptation of a dense and thick novel, you can perceptibly feel the loose threads running over everywhere and be frustrated at the amount of extra detail missing from the screen.  That’ll explain the way the film doesn’t quite seem to hang together.  While Barney’s Version revolves around Paul Giamatti’s exceptional lead performance and Dustin Hoffman’s unrecognizable turn as his father, actors surrounding them are far less credible.  Most of the female characters seem played either without subtlety (I once thought I could watch Minnie Driver all day, but her one-note shrill performance tested that assumption) or without affect (Rosamund Pike, sedated throughout): even assuming that the film is from Barney’s subjective perspective isn’t enough to excuse it.  Humorous in the details and tragic in the whole, Barney’s Version runs off in all kinds of directions, and it’s not in its nature to finish neatly with a big finale.  It’s best, then, to appreciate its small quirky moments, its Montréal atmosphere and the occasional Denys Arcand cameo.  It is, as is the case with so many middle-of-the-road Canadian dramas, amiable but unremarkable.  Barney’s Version is good enough to make Canadian audiences feel better about seeing it, but it’s not worth much commentary otherwise.

  • Die Another Day (2002)

    Die Another Day (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2002) Forty years after Doctor No, James Bond is back with his twentieth movie, and Die Another Day is kind of a half-hearted renewal. In the first hour, we actually see something new: James Bond failing and being captured. Shocking! you say as the suave British spy does things never seen before. He is tortured (with a Madonna song, appropriately enough), exchanged for another prisoner and has to fight his way back in the service. Tons of winks to previous Bond adventures are there for the sharp-eyed viewer, including a further nod to “the original James Bond” for those hardcore Bond fans. The only sour notes come from Halle Berry, whose Jinx has to be one of the worst Bond Girl ever: her line delivery is flat and perfunctory, with the added disadvantage of a crass attitude that make Bond look downright humble. Yikes! The second half of the film isn’t as appealing, given that it simply delivers Yet Another Bond Adventure with the usual trappings, boring action sequences and overlong finale. Jinx is scarcely worth rescuing, the villains are flat, the directing/editing gets more and more incoherent as the film goes along and some truly hideous CGI shots (Bond surfing amongst the icebergs) contaminate the otherwise good visuals. I did like parts of the end sequence, but the rest is just dull, dull, dull… Still, it’s hard not to like Rosamund Pike and the sword-fighting sequence. Add those to the good first hour, and we’ve got a better-than average Bond. Which is all you need, really.

    (Second viewing, Jellyfin streaming, January 2025) Oof; I hadn’t seen Die Another Day in more than two decades and had forgotten almost all of it.  The good news are that it had a lot that I didn’t remember, and the bad news are that I had forgotten just how much of a sub-standard Bond it was. Oh, I don’t dislike all of it — it’s fun, after the dour and brooding Craig era, to see Bond in a good old over-the-top 1990s action movie adventure.  There are fancy gadgets, megalomaniac villains, spy films twists and turns, baby-faced Rosamund Pike looking very cute, and Pierce Brosnan being pretty good in the middle of it all.  The problem is that the rest of the film has severe problems.  Preposterous villain, irritating Bond girl (Halle Berry, wasted), slap-dash CGI sequences, too-frenetic editing, insipid writing and references to the franchise’s history that often feel hammered in.  Also, I don’t like Samantha Bond as Moneypenny.  Revisiting Die Another Day after watching a lot of the other Bond films leads me to reassess my first-viewing opinion — everything right and wrong I’ve noticed back in 2002 still stands, but the result is definitely in the lower tier of the series. Still fun to watch, though.