Marvel could really do with a win round about now. Bringing audiences back after a finale called “Endgame” was always going to be a tough sell. Even so, the lack of a gathering momentum in post-pandemic era of the studio’s Cinematic Universe has been conspicuous. While Doctor Strange set a strong ball rolling, there was a stumble in Thor’s stride and a downright limp in Ant-Man’s. Throw in a Jonathan Majors shaped scandal and increasing dependency on nostalgia headlining and the marvel rather begins to lose its -lous. Still, the so-called Multiverse Saga remains in early days. Perhaps a septet of intergalactic rejects can turn things around yet.
Rachel Joyce translates her first novel into her first screenplay with The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. There’s more than a touch of the Jonas Jonassonian to the tale, in which a dull pensioner traverses the length and breadth of Britain on foot. Fry boasts fewer comic spikes than Jonasson’s 100 year-old man but is no less eccentric, his story just as strangely believable an anecdote of very human quirk. Joyce’s ponderous words find happy union in the thoughtful eye of Hettie Macdonald, one half of the directing duo behind lockdown hit Normal People, and lush cinematography of Kate McCullough. The plotting is somber and steady but offers much welcome breathing space to appreciate the minutiae of English beauty, town and country alike.
George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four warnings feel a long distant memory in the face of Missing, a stand-alone sequel to Aneesh Chaganty’s buzz hit Searching. Long gone are fears of the Big Brother. These days, there’s not so much data Gen Z won’t sacrifice for free Wi-Fi and a welcome discount. Where Orwell forebode, Missing delights. The whole world is but a click away, if that in the era of Face ID. As with Searching, the thrills of Missing unfold in the ‘screenlife’ format – which is to say, entirely through computer desktops and web cams. It’s an approach not so far removed from the noughties’ fondness for found footage and similarly dependent on a certain degree of stretched credulity.
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