New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi has garnered cult status and critical acclaim with his distinctive style of madcap comedy. The controversial premise of his latest feature Jojo Rabbit has caused quite the stir as the Jewish auteur tackles the topic of Nazism. Based on the novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, the WWII story sees German boy Johannes (Roman Griffin Davis) enrol in a Hitler Youth training camp run by Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell) and his team of instructors. Meanwhile, Johannes’s mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) is harbouring Jewish girl Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in their house, presenting a moral dilemma for the young protagonist which he ponders with Adolf (Taika Waititi), his dictatorial imaginary friend.
Indie filmmaker Noah Baumbach explores love within the confines of separation with divorce drama Marriage Story. The plot follows actress Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and her theatre director husband Charlie (Adam Driver) as their relationship is falling apart. With their young son to consider, they want an amicable break-up, but once lawyers get involved, the situation becomes messy and emotionally charged.
Of all the arts, anime arguably has one of the largest cult followings so news that one of its quintessential pieces was to be adapted into a live-action picture was met with bated breath by much of the fan-base. Stepping up to the plate to direct science-fiction fable Ghost in the Shell is Rupert Sanders with what is just his second feature. Set in a vibrant dystopian future, the story centres around Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson) who, after narrowly surviving a terrorist attack, has her brain inserted into a robotic body with powerful cybernetic enhancements. Designed to become a crime-fighting soldier by intelligence firm Hanka Robotics, she is assigned to track down and kill a mysterious hacker known only as Kuze (Michael Pitt) who has been infiltrating the company’s systems.
Disney classics have been transitioning to live-action pictures of late with Snow White, Robin Hood and Cinderella having already received the cinematic treatment and Beauty & the Beast and Tarzan in the pipeline. Based on Rudyard Kipling’s works of the same name, the multi-talented actor and director Jon Favreau steps up to the plate to direct The Jungle Book, the latest adaptation of the beloved story. Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is an orphaned man cub, raised by wolves after wise black panther Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) finds him alone in the jungle. When all of the animals gather to drink during a water truce in the dry season, wicked tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) learns of Mowgli’s place in the community. Out for revenge against man following an attack years earlier, Khan wishes death upon Mowgli after the drought has passed. To protect his adoptive family, Mowgli flees the wolf pack and soon meets roguish, but fun-loving bear Baloo (Bill Murray) who takes him under his wing.
In a summer full of blockbusters with brains, acclaimed director Luc Besson gives us ‘Lucy’, a sci-fi film that explores the maximum potential of the human psyche. Scarlett Johansson stars in the titular role, continuing her recent streak of forward-thinking performances. Set around the grubby Taiwanese underworld, Lucy finds herself in trouble with a local drug lord, and her bloodstream is subjected to a deadly amount of a synthetic substance which lets humans use more than the usual ten percent of their brain capacity. This leads her to track down scientist Professor Samuel Norman, played by Morgan Freeman, who has years of research dedicated to the topic. Will his wealth of knowledge be enough to save Lucy, or will the symptoms prove to be fatal?
Under The Skin is a daring envisioning of Michael Faber’s novel, following an alien seductress that goes by the name of Laura, played by Scarlett Johansson, roaming the grids of Glasgow preying on young men. Directed by Jonathan Glazer, whose wealth of experience in glossy ads and music videos is hugely evident in his striking visuals. It is only his third feature, and his first for about a decade, so it is interesting to see his style bleed through into a full-length film wrapped around a fully developed narrative. The haunting sci-fi thriller takes on themes human existence and is by no means easy viewing, leaving the viewer on edge for its entirety due to a deeply unsettling soundscape.
Now that the romantic comedy genre has been overdone to the point of cliché, a new wave of work has emerged which attempts to subvert the stereotypes and toy with our expectations, sometimes referred to as anti-rom-coms. Actor turned filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a key figure in one of the pioneering movies of this sort when he starred in 500 Days of Summer, and has now had a go himself. ‘Don Jon’ takes a seedy peep into the life of a modern man, Jon Martello Jr, who is obsessed with internet pornography, and who struggles to connect with women emotionally because of this. When he meets his dream girl Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson), who has a fixation of her own in Hollywood romances, can he put his virtual fantasies to one side in return for a real relationship?
In Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut, he certainly wears his influences on his sleeve. The quick cut quirkiness could be taken straight from the mind of Edgar Wright and is used freely and frequently to illustrate and summarise his interests, which consist mainly of masturbation, working out and attending church every Sunday to renounce his weekly sins. This provides a fun opening third, developing the macho man central character that looks like a product of watching too many Robert DeNiro films and the family dinner scenes play up the Italian-American trademarks entertainingly. The father-son rapport is particularly funny, with Tony Danza playing Martello Sr drooling over his son’s glamorous girlfriend. As the plot progresses, things get a little repetitive and when we sadly find ourselves in more familiar territory, the initial creativity is lost. A more humane personality is introduced in Esther (Julianne Moore) to interact with the one-dimensional lothario leading to a crossroads where he must re-evaluate his priorities.
It is a cheekily clever casting choice from Gordon-Levitt in picking Scarlett Johansson as his love interest. Her curves and blonde locks are impressive attributes to his superficial lead who instantly judges potential lovers by their looks scoring them out of ten with his friends. Is this the twisted representation of the modern relationship it presents itself as, or is it truer to life than he thinks? I think his narrative is, in a way, probably a more accurate social commentary than the lovey-dovey Channing Tatum weepies that Barbara is so fond of, but it is an intriguing topic to tackle nonetheless.
Aside from his writing and acting, Gordon-Levitt manages to give a charismatic performance given that his role, for the most part lacks depth, and he gets solid performances from his supporting cast. Brie Larson putting in a near muted turn as Jon’s sister who is glued to her mobile phone in every scene she is in, perhaps in a fun-poking reference to the insignificant hushed females from old Italian-American gangster movies, another nod from the director to his inspirations. ‘Don Jon’ is an ambitious first outing from a filmmaker who has an impressive knack for constructing nice visual set pieces, but lacks an original concept. The indie quirks are enough to amuse for a while, and Johansson is definitely easy on the eye, but both begin to wear thin when the potential isn’t maximised. It marks an exciting sign for things to come from a fresh thinking filmmaker who I believe that one day will create his masterpiece.
Cinema Perspective 