Empire of Light Review (2022)

It might be a bit overkill for the Academy to have awarded Olivia Colman three Oscar nominations in four years, but the multi-layered ball of repressed pride that Colman plays just might be the performance of the year.

The film is set in a theater in a small English town in 1981 and though it focuses on Olivia Colman's character of Hilary, there's a rich slice-of-life quality to it.

Sam Mendes has long had a knack of capturing the atmospheres of time and place: The suburban purgatory of American Beauty, the sepia-toned Depression-era Midwest of Road to Perdition, the hellish warscapes of Iraq in Jarhead and World War I in 1917.

At the same time, Mendes tries to equate a cinema in 1981 as the height of theater going, when he's at least 40 years removed from the era of movie palaces and event screenings. Although it could be argued that  Jaws and Star Wars might have jump-started a new weekened-centered craze of moviegoing, that's not what's really being portrayed (unless the original cut of Chariots of Fire had space lasers or sharks I am unaware of).  There's a curious vagueness here from a director who's generally so exacting with his settings. It's also hard to get a grip on exactly what kind of an English town this is: Vaguely somewhere that's not London is as much as I can gather.

The crust of Hilary's arc is that it throws her into two relationships: A numbing dalliance with her cheating boss (Colin Firth) and a May-December romance (Michael Ward as Stephen) that's as dreamy as the movies that Hilary and her crew never actually get around to watching (irony alert!). Colman plays the self-loathing with the former and the genuine affection with the latter beautifully.

There's also the obligatory referencing of the times (the Thatcher era) and the racism involved in Ward's character. It's a sure bet that any film that attempts to discuss race (particularly by a White director) will have loud critics whatever you do, so it's best to just ignore that: This isn't a film with any profound proscribed solutions to race, but the existence of a Black character in a more racist era than the present is dealt realistically and in a way that serves the story.

The film picks up significantly in the second act with two or three strong twists that are cleverly deployed. It's revealed halfway through the film that Hilary suffers from a certain mental illness but the foreshadowing is subtle enough to provide a true a-ha moment that pieces together the story retroactively. 

It's certainly not one of the best works of Sam Mendes but the film has a certain charm that keeps the film fresh.

The 25 Best Performances of 2018 in Film

1.       Ethan Hawke, First Reformed-What’s most impressive is that there are no overtly dramatic shouting monologues when you feel the character really has something to say. You can feel him bottling it up inside. 

2.       Rachel Weisz, Disobedience-The performance is helped along by the absence of a score in some places. The soundscape (mirroring a horror film to some degree) matches the performance really well and there’s also the fact that Weisz has to play discomfort in the first half without revealing too much of a larger truth (her past attraction to McAdams’ character)

3.       Christian Bale, Vice-It boils down largely to “It’s Christian Bale, what do you expect?” There’s a lot of nuance in playing Bale

4.       Rachel Weisz, The Favourite-The stand-out in this film because she’s so devious and fun. If Emma Stone donned an accent, it might have been more of a contest

5.       Mahershala Ali, Green Book-I feel like accent-wise he Sidney Poitiered it up a wee bit too much and I could sense inconsistencies accent-wise, so deducting a little for that. Other than that, it’s a tour-de-force performance worthy of an Oscar. Obviously, it should be a lead but the marketing team at Universal was smart enough to place him in a weak field where there’d be no question he could win with all the fluctuations of a long season

6.       Kiki Layne, If Beale Street Could Talk-In particular, I remember the indelible montage of her working long days behind a retail counter while pregnant and then succumbing to labor

7.       Alessandro Nivola, Disobedience-“You are free!” So much subtlety in this performance and so many uncomfortable situations. “Disobedience” and “The Favourite” were easily the most challenging and successfully acted films of the year

8.       Rachel McAdams, Disobedience-McAdams’s Oscar nomination came from being elevated by the prestige of starring in sn eventual Best Picture winner in a week year. This is miles above that role. 

9.       Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody-I was originally happy to see him win an Oscar but upon rewatching this film a second time on an airplane, BORRRING. I believe I was so blind to its flaws on the first watch because I knew nothing about Queen and they are a really interesting story. Mercury was an ethnic and sexual outliar to his time while gaining exalted status as a rock God and he was also intellectually ahead of his time. If you already are aware of Queen the novelty wears off fast and that applies for the performance too. However, there is a certain multi-directional charisma Malek bought to the role that helped move it along. I was planning on ranking him higher but A) He didn’t sing and B) He has a certain naivette in the first half of the film that sort of leaves more questions than it answers.

10.   Ben Foster, Leave No Trace-Proud to brag here that I attended a screening with Foster appearing afterwards in Q &A. Since the days of “Big Trouble” and “X-Men: The Last Stand”, I’ve been a fan of this guy.  He generally has a look that gets him cast in baddies or rough-and-tumble guys.

11.   Viola Davis, Doubt-I’m not as much of a fan lately of Davis for reasons that have to do with her (publicly disowning “The Help)  and reasons absent (the attention she gets in comparison to costars), but It was a creative choice to grant her a BAFTA nomination. As the lead, she plays a key role in elevating a genre film to a work with the kind of socio-economic  that might get the Oscars talking.

12.   Cynthia Evro, Bad Times at El Royale-Aside from her wonderful singing voice, she brings the fear and tension and when she smashes that bottle over the dude’s  head (it would spoil it to identify the victim of her smash but I left a hint there), it’s a show-stopper of a scene. This film has a very strong ensemble

13.   Jon Hamm, Beirut-Squinting at intelligence reports, ruminating over high-pressure decisions, talking with the authority of a well-versed operative against various diplomats, this is the kind of stuff they gave Claire Danes Emmys for in “Homeland” and Hamm deserves at least a sliver of the same attention here for a fine performance in a film that opened at the wrong time of year. Like Viola Davis, the movie’s ability to transcend genre rests entirely on him.

14.   Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk-An excellent choice for Best Supporting Actress if they’re not going to go with Weisz. The scene where she pleads to the Puerto Rican for her son-in-law’s life is that showstopping moment an Oscar campaign needs for the highlight reel but she’s present in every scene.

15.   Emma Stone, The Favourite-This film is a collection of great scenes and she had a number of standout moments I can’t deny. If she put just a bit more work into an accent or just felt more of the period, I could have felt like she was carrying more of her weight.

16.   Olivia Coleman, The Favourite-It’s always nice to see the Oscar prognosticators be made fools of on Oscar night. After all, the spirit of the event is to be elated when a name is called on the big night and those prognosticators try to mathematically shortcut the process and suck the fun out of it. Besides, Olivia Coleman has been a vibrant up-and-comer who has enhanced everything she’s done and Glenn Close isn’t owed anything just because she’s been nominated before. However, the screen time was a bit short to get all worked up about.  

17.   Colin Farrell, Widows-I’m not one of those types who goes around saying “I’m gonna write a screenplay someday” but I occasionally have imaginary movie ideas I’m developing in my head and one of them is about an apathetic politician exactly like the kind Colin Farrell played in this film which is kind of creepy yet remarkable. One way to measure a good supporting performance is if you want to see a whole film developed about the side character and in this case, yes.

18.   Tim Blake Nelson, Ballad of Buster Scruggs-If this singing cowboy had the whole film to himself, I could say it having some kind of Jack-Sparrow-like potential in terms of making a dent in pop culture and getting action figures and the like.

19.   Thomasin McKenzie, Leave No Trace-I remember it being a great movie with a solid relationship in the center, but I don’t have that sensory memory so many months  later of what this performance felt like.

20.   Marina del Taverna, Roma-Is the “d” capitalized or lower-case. Discuss amongst yourselves (or look it up)

21.   Viggo Mortensen, Green Book-A bit stereotypically Italian but f the Green Book critics who are continuing to perpetuate the myth that the movie’s inaccurate. I’m assuming Mortensen did his homework

22.   Jeff Bridges, Bad Times at El Royale-After seeing Jeff Bridges in interviews, I have a sneaking suspicion that this seven-time Oscar nominee has just been playing variations of his stoned hippie self for a long time. I’ve seen four of his seven Oscar-nominated performances and have been unimpressed.

23.   Michael Palin, Death of Stalin-What a national treasure. His indecisive pickiness is a great contrast to this unique film

24.   Lakieth Stanfield, Sorry to Bother You-A terrible and obnoxious movie, but credit where credit is due.

25.   Sandra Bullock, Ocean’s 8-Yes, I think she’s more charming than the smug George Clooney here. This is a playfully fun part and she has a slyness I like

Others I was considering:
Nancy Garcia Garcia, Roma; Donald Glover, Solo; Steve Carell, Vice; Jeffrey Tambour, Death of Stalin; Rufus  Sewell, Death of Stalin, Lewis Pullman, Bad Times at El Royale; John  David Washington, BlacKkKlansman; Amanda Seyfried, First Reformed