Empire of Light (2022)
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 115m
Director: Sam Mendes
Cast: Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Colin Firth, Toby Jones
Synopsis:
At an art deco picture palace on the south coast in the early eighties, Hilary works as duty manager. Mental illness has rendered her emotionally unbalanced, and when a young black attendant is employed, a common bond of isolation proves both enriching and unsettling.
Review:
Like one of those Warners/Bette Davis movies of the forties, this could almost be seen as a vehicle for Colman, who by this time had carved out a niche for herself as the febrile, menopausal martyr to female empowerment. Mendes is also setting out to recreate the cinematic doldrums of the period (via an idyllically well preserved victim of 70s twinning), hingeing on the 1981 release of Chariots of Fire, plus the skinheaded thuggery and racism of Thatcher's Britain. It does this, moreover, at the pace of a David Lean epic, and it is all too much for the dramatic material to support. Pretty pictures, a long delayed paean to the magic of cinema, and a moving exhortation for renewal remain, but this is no Cinema Paradiso.
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 115m
Director: Sam Mendes
Cast: Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Colin Firth, Toby Jones
Synopsis:
At an art deco picture palace on the south coast in the early eighties, Hilary works as duty manager. Mental illness has rendered her emotionally unbalanced, and when a young black attendant is employed, a common bond of isolation proves both enriching and unsettling.
Review:
Like one of those Warners/Bette Davis movies of the forties, this could almost be seen as a vehicle for Colman, who by this time had carved out a niche for herself as the febrile, menopausal martyr to female empowerment. Mendes is also setting out to recreate the cinematic doldrums of the period (via an idyllically well preserved victim of 70s twinning), hingeing on the 1981 release of Chariots of Fire, plus the skinheaded thuggery and racism of Thatcher's Britain. It does this, moreover, at the pace of a David Lean epic, and it is all too much for the dramatic material to support. Pretty pictures, a long delayed paean to the magic of cinema, and a moving exhortation for renewal remain, but this is no Cinema Paradiso.
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 115m
Director: Sam Mendes
Cast: Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Colin Firth, Toby Jones
Synopsis:
At an art deco picture palace on the south coast in the early eighties, Hilary works as duty manager. Mental illness has rendered her emotionally unbalanced, and when a young black attendant is employed, a common bond of isolation proves both enriching and unsettling.
Review:
Like one of those Warners/Bette Davis movies of the forties, this could almost be seen as a vehicle for Colman, who by this time had carved out a niche for herself as the febrile, menopausal martyr to female empowerment. Mendes is also setting out to recreate the cinematic doldrums of the period (via an idyllically well preserved victim of 70s twinning), hingeing on the 1981 release of Chariots of Fire, plus the skinheaded thuggery and racism of Thatcher's Britain. It does this, moreover, at the pace of a David Lean epic, and it is all too much for the dramatic material to support. Pretty pictures, a long delayed paean to the magic of cinema, and a moving exhortation for renewal remain, but this is no Cinema Paradiso.