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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 03 May 2021

A film that’s long stuck in my memory bank is Penny Marshall’s Awakenings, a 1990 drama that earned an Academy Award nomination for best picture.  It followed a physician (Robin Williams) who used an experimental drug on catatonic patients to “bring them back to life.”  I wouldn’t have believed it if not knowing it was a true story.  What if you were asleep for 30 years and then suddenly woke up?  How easy would it be to reconnect with family and to understand all that has changed in the world?

A similar idea is explored in June Again, an Australian film with Noni Hazlehurst in the title role.  June suffers from dementia (the effects of a series of strokes) and has spent her last few years living in an aged care facility.  She no longer remembers her family and she struggles to recall simple words.  The introductory scenes bear a curious resemblance to Florian Zeller’s The Father in that we see things through June’s confused eyes and it’s hard to work out what’s real and what’s not.

And then... a miracle happens.  June wakes up unexpectedly one morning with her memory restored.  She reads staff name tags, she completes a crossword puzzle, and she asks questions about her family.  Writer-director JJ Winlove goes with a not-so-heavy-handed approach and plays these moments for laughs.  Now that June’s full personality is on display, we see she’s a feisty, funny woman who loves to exert dominance.  She bluffs a security guard, sneaks out of the aged care home, and sweet-talks a taxi driver into giving her a free ride.  The end result - June is on the loose!

There are a handful of interesting misadventures (such as a moment where June befriends a young music student) but at its heart, June Again is the tale of someone effectively “coming back from the dead” and the impact it has on close friends and family.  On realising how much her two grown children have underachieved (at least in her opinion), June re-establishes herself as the meddling matriarch and is quick to dispense advice.  Her heart is in the right place but there are times when her ignorance of recent events and her general stubbornness cause more harm than good.

There’s a bit too much going on at times.  The weakest subplot involves June involving herself in family’s wallpaper production business and dishing out ideas.  Would she not have higher priorities to worry about?  The better stuff, and this a credit to the fine performances, are the squabbles between June and her two kids (exemplified by an awkward “intervention” where the son arrives with a six-pack of beer).  Hazlehurst wins the majority of laughs while a subdued Claudia Karvan and Stephen Curry are required to take things more seriously.  It’s a nice balance.

As fantastical as this scenario may appear, you grow to care about these three characters and their fate.  If there was any doubt, the film’s emotional punchline provides confirmation.  A feel-good movie about dementia?  June Again is a winner.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 11 April 2021

Supernova combines the essence of two films we’ve seen released in Australia over the past two months.  The Father was the story of an elderly man battling dementia while Blackbird followed a dying woman as she caught up with friends and family for the last time.  In this British drama, directed by Harry Macqueen, we’ve got a writer, Tusker (Tucci), diagnosed with early onset dementia.  Accompanied by his long-term partner, Sam (Firth), they set out on road trip across England to reminisce and dine with old friends.  They may not say it openly but it has the appearance of one “final holiday” before Tusker’s sharp mind slips away.

The film isn’t so much about who they visit or where they go (acknowledging there’s some beautiful scenery) but rather, the interaction between the pair over the space of a few days.  There’s a sincere chemistry between Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) and Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones) and, as illustrated by an early scene where they jokingly bicker over small details, you get a strong sense of the long-term, loving connection between them.

Firth and Tucci have worked together before (2001’s Conspiracy), have been friends for two decades, and they currently reside near each other in London.  They were also born just two months apart with each celebrating their 60^th birthday late last year (they’re looking good for their age).  I’m sure their real-life closeness helped but kudos also belongs to Macqueen in extracting these genuine performances.

It’s the great script which provides the foundation.  There are times when the two characters are engaged in intense arguments with each trying to convince the other of their viewpoint.  They’re intelligent, persuasive and stubborn.  On the flip side, there are times when dialogue is wisely avoided.  We know what Sam and Tusker are feeling so there’s no reason to verbalise their thoughts and create unnecessary melodrama.

While there’s much to appreciate during the relatively short 93-minute running time, Supernova offers something to reflect upon after the credits have rolled.  It can be so painful to watch a loved one lose their memory and judgement to this debilitating condition.  The film asks us to think about our reaction to the same situation – from both the perspective of the sufferer and the caregiver.  The questions are tough and the answers are even tougher.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 22 April 2021

Edee (Wright) is a middle-aged, suburban woman who has purchased a dilapidated, single-room cabin in the Wyoming wilderness.  You won’t find this place on Google Street View and there’s no highway or convenience store nearby.  Wyoming is already the least densely populated state in the contiguous United States and she’s deliberately selected this spot due to its remoteness from civilisation.

There’s a reason behind her unusual change of living.  Edee went through a tragic experience and, as she tells a psychiatrist in the film’s opening scene, she doesn’t want to be around people anymore.  Edee has pushed away those offering support so she, rightly or wrongly, can be “alone with her pain” and grieve in the way she desires.

One could look at Edee and see her actions as selfish and suicidal.  She hasn’t told her family where she’s gone (they must be worried sick) and she’s living in a freezing shack in the middle of nowhere with no car, no mobile phone, a minimal amount of tinned food, and zero skills when it comes to hunting and fishing.  It doesn’t matter what she reads in the handful of self-help books she’s purchased.  In the same vein as Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild, Edee’s is well-intentioned but ill-equipped.

Writers Jesse Chatham and Erin Dignam have structured the film as part drama (which works) and part mystery (which doesn’t work).  They try to build unnecessary intrigue by withholding details of Edee’s heart-breaking past, continually dropping hints via flashbacks and fantasy scenes, and then revealing all at the end.  Perhaps this decision was taken to mirror Edee’s insular nature (she gives up very little) but, as a viewer looking in from the outside, a greater understanding of her fractured psyche from the outset would have made it easier to “buy into” the decisions she makes along the way.

The film finds its feet in the second half through the introduction of Miguel (Bichir), a cowboy-like hunter who befriends Edee and helps out with a few things.  A cynical part of me saw his arrival as an attempt to add dialogue to the movie (there isn’t much when Edee is on her own) but ultimately, I loved the bond developed between these two leading characters.

They remind us that, however much we try to shut ourselves off from the world, there’s no substitute for meaningful human interaction.  We’ve seen this theme driven home in many other movies where two unrelated people come together and improve themselves by helping the other.  It rings true in this case thanks to the subtle performances of Robin Wright (Forrest Gump) and Demián Bichir (A Better Life).  It’s hard not be moved by the finale.

Marking the feature film directorial debut of Wright, Land is a simple but effective tale.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 05 April 2021

Politics is a curious beast. It is covered thoroughly by the media every day and there’s no shortage of opinions from the public who weigh in on social media or talkback radio.  Yet, despite how relevant it is to our daily lives, its inner machinations are often more secretive than the British Royal Family.  We’re not privy to the arguments, compromises and concessions that take place behind closed doors.  I’m reminded of the lyrics from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton - “No one really knows how the game is played... the art of the trade... how the sausage gets made... we just assume that it happens.”

It’s a relevant point because Collective is a rare documentary that offers a glimpse, albeit a fleeting one, about this fascinating world.  In October 2015, a fire tore through a crowded nightclub in Bucharest, Romania and 64 people were killed.  Mass protests followed and the entire government, led by Prime Minister Victor Ponta, resigned.  An interim government was assembled consisting of 21 technocrats with no affiliation to established political parties (itself a fascinating idea).  They would govern for a year until fresh democratic elections could be held.

Director Alexander Nanau focuses his camera on two key individuals.  The first is Câtâlan Tolontan, an investigative journalist at a daily sports newspaper.  At a time when many other journalists were happy to peddle the government’s propaganda, Tolontan wasn’t afraid to dig deeper and ask tough questions.  What he uncovered in the aftermath of the nightclub fire was astounding (and I won’t spoil it).  To borrow the words of his colleague - “The story is so mind blowing, I’m afraid we’ll look crazy.”

The film’s second key subject is Vlad Voiculescu, a 32-year-old economist with no political experience who had been appointed Minister of Health in the temporary government.  Remarkably, Voiculescu allowed Nanau to film the inner workings of his department on the basis that “health belongs to the citizens and it is their basic right to know what’s happening here.”  Through his eyes, we learn the Romanian health system is a hotbed of corruption and almost everyone is in on it.  A few brave whistle blowers agree to appear on camera in the film and their stories are shocking.

Collective is riveting from start to finish.  For those unfamiliar with this story and these people, it’ll be both eye-opening and depressing.  It reminds us of the importance of quality investigative journalism.  It demonstrates how tainted one can become when driven by money above all else.  Most interestingly, it shows how difficult it can be to change “the system” when so many have a vested interest in quietly maintaining the status quo.  The closing scene, where Voiculescu dissects an election result, sums up the film’s essence.

Nominated at the Academy Awards for both best documentary feature and best international feature (just the second film to achieve that honour), Collective is a movie you won’t easily forget.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 15 April 2021

In 1972, singer Diana Ross earned an Academy Award nomination for playing iconic American singer Billie Holiday in her first movie role.  History has repeated with Andra Day.  Almost 50 years after the release of the maligned Lady Sings the Blues, director Lee Daniels (Precious) and writer Suzan-Lori Parks (Native Son) offer a different perspective on Holiday and, despite the film having a few issues, it’s hard not to be impressed by the performance of Day who deftly embodies the title character.

If you’re new to the Billie Holiday tale, she was a gifted African American jazz singer who rose to fame during the Great Depression.  She recorded her first songs as an 18-year-old in 1933 and, based in New York City, she regularly performed at concerts and cabaret shows in front of packed crowds.  Dying in 1959 at the age of just 44, she was posthumously inducted into both the Grammy Hall of Fame and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday portrays its subject as a gifted musician, a powerful civil rights activist, and a troubled human being with questionable taste in men.  It’s not trying to paint her as a saint.  Most notably, it recognises she had both drug and alcohol addictions that had a significant impact on her personal and professional life.  She was imprisoned for a year in 1947 after being found guilty of narcotics possession.

Drawing largely from the Johann Hari’s source material, “Chasing the Scream”, the film also offers the perspective of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics headed by Harry Anslinger (Hedlund).  It paints Anslinger as a racist who uses the “war on drugs” to specifically target African Americans and other minorities.  He enlists an undercover agent (Rhodes) to follow the high-profile Holiday and gather intelligence that could lead to her arrest.

Few would deny Anslinger was a bigot but there’s a clumsiness to the way these scenes play out in the film.  He’s very open about his villainy and, given he served as commissioner for 32 years, you have to believe he was more cunning and calculating than what we see in the movie.  The relationship Holiday shares with the undercover agent is also difficult to buy into (perhaps because it didn’t happen in real life either).

The film is at its best when it focuses solely on Billie Holiday, her talent and her role in representing African American people.  This was all prior to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.  Holiday wasn’t afraid to stand on stage and sing protest songs like “Strange Fruit” to shine the spotlight on inequality and white suppression.  I enjoyed the confidence and no-bullshit attitude brought to the character by Andra Day.  We see Holliday as a woman not afraid to speak her mind.

The drug/alcoholism stuff is overdone (it feels repetitive in places) but The United States vs. Billie Holiday still offers insight into a person who’s legacy should not be forgotten.

You can read my chat with Oscar nominated star Andra Day by clicking here.