Having proved herself a scene stealing, eccentric comic in last year’s Crazy Rich Asians, Awkwafina is a revelation in Lulu Wang’s intrinsically more somber new drama The Farewell. Humorous beats are perhaps inevitable where the star is concerned – such is the human condition after all – but here come deftly woven with the poignance of a funerary tone. By the coming of Wang’s final stimulating shots, there can be little doubt that The Farewell will stand as one of 2019’s most moving features. It’s another well chosen triumph for hitmakers A24.
The ongoing ripples of Alfonso Cuarón’s stunning, technologically unprecedented, success with 2013 Oscar dominee Gravity pummel through James Gray’s latest thought provoker. Breathtaking vistas expand across the picture’s wide screen, with pitch perfect photorealism – boosted by bona fide moon surface footage in some scenes – captured on sumptuously grainy 35mm film. Amid the deep space in which Ad Astra is set, Gray has lens-eyes only for his leading man. Intense close ups force viewers right into the depressive depths of Brad Pitt’s fully engaged eyes, seeking answers, hope, resolution even, but finding despair alone. It’s a pity Gray and co-writer Ethan Gross’ arduously moribund narration rarely shuts up long enough to let us appreciate the fact.
Like one of Mrs Patmore’s proverbial soufflés, Downton Abbey in film format is light, fluffy and permanently – perilously – on the verge of total collapse. It is not, as some have suggested, merely akin to an overlong episode of the television series that took the world by storm between 2010 and 2015. No. What has been created here is a whole series, truncated to singular feature length; a full box set lacking only advert breaks and next time teasers. One can almost hear the twee inflections in John Lunn’s divine score that ought to herald commercials, and will one day soon with ease. Despite sleeker visuals and an afternoon spent filming long shots in a helicopter, this budgetary upgraded Downton won’t win new fans for the franchise but should prove to be the icing on the hard core’s cake.
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