In Contention

Tag: Ben Whishaw

  • REVIEW: “The Tempest” (*)

    Venice Film Festival

    If any one title in the Shakespeare library has been sufficiently fiddled about with on screen, it’s “The Tempest,” among the most tonally malleable of his comedies, and a fantasy that gifts filmmakers with obvious opportunities for spectacle.

    “Forbidden Planet,” a terrific 1956 sci-fi riff on the play, perhaps took this adaptability furthest, but it only set the ball rolling for assorted free interpretations: Derek Jarman gave it a homoerotic spin in 1979, Paul Mazursky rewrote it as a neurotic modern-day sex comedy in 1982 and Peter Greenaway played all manner of metatextual games in 1991’s “Prospero’s Books.” At this point, about the most radical thing a filmmaker could do with “The Tempest” on screen is play it straight.

    That is evidently not a view shared by one Julie Taymor, whose murky, lunk-headed and signally boring new film tricks out Shakespeare’s text with gaudy CGI saturation, a wardrobe from “Zoolander”‘s Derelicte collection and a key sex change in the lead, as sorcerer and doting father Prospero here morphs into Helen Mirren’s Prospera, a highbrow voodoo priestess of sorts with a permanent Patty Hewes-style scowl.

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  • ‘Bright Star’ twinkles at Cannes

    Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish in Bright StarDoes the comeback begin here? This morning gave critics their first look at Jane Campion’s Keats biopic “Bright Star” — the director’s first feature in six years, and her first foray into period drama since “The Portrait of a Lady” — and early reactions indicate a genuine return to form.

    The New York Times claims there were “few dry eyes” at the press screening of the tragic romance, while Screen International’s Allan Hunter goes so far as to suggest the film “match(es) the haunting intensity” of “The Piano,” which of course landed Campion the Palme d’Or 16 years ago. Like that masterpiece, he thinks this film could also be awards-bound, not least for the lead performances of Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw:

    Beautifully crafted in every department from the composure of the camerawork to the precision of the costume and production design, Bright Star is a film to savour. Campion ensures that its pictorial appeal is matched by an emotional engagement thanks to a universally fine cast.

    (Cornish) captures all the youthful impetuosity of the English Fanny and portrays her as a young woman trying to maintain control of a life torn apart by all the fresh emotions and new sensations that she is experiencing. It is a performance that should win her awards season consideration and emphatically underlines why she is one of the most highly regarded performers of her generation. Great expectations now also attend the performances of Ben Whishaw and he is equally impressive as John Keats, making the poet an entirely human figure.

    I couldn’t be more pleased to hear that Campion is back in some critics’ good books, and I can’t say how excited I am at the possibility of Cornish finally cashing in on her “next big thing” buzz; the Australian blew me away in “Somersault” four years ago, but has never found a vehicle of that standard since. Here’s hoping.

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