December 18th
Waves
Words on Bathroom Walls
Bill & Ted Face the Music
Interestingly, after Babyteeth last week, I've seen two more films dealing with teen troubles, and another well suited to teens of all ages. Stunning young actor Taylor Russell reveals her prodigious talent in two of today's films, and our old faves Bill and Ted make a welcome return to lift the spirits.
Waves
Dir: Trey Edward Shults
Length: 135 mins
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© Powerful family drama, with
themes of race, substance abuse and forgiveness |
Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jnr) is pushed by his Dad (Sterling K Brown) to excel in the school wrestling team, but a shoulder injury puts paid to those dreams. When Ty's gal Alexis (Alexa Demie) announces she's pregnant, he is unable to cope and his life spirals out of control. Subsequently his younger sister Emily (Taylor Russell) is befriended by Ty's fellow wrestling team member Luke (Lucas Hedge), and together they learn what it means to grow up in a hurry. I'm deliberately keeping plot points obscure, as some very heavy stuff goes down in this superb film, looking at the lives of a middle-class, aspirational black family, the extra challenges they face, and what happens when ill-considered actions destroy lives. A notable feature is the extremely impressive cinematography - beautiful and creative. The acting is uniformly strong. Strangely, it's a bit like two major stories combined into one, and I'm unsure if this is a strength or weakness, but overall a seriously impressive film.4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended
Bill & Ted Face the Music
Dir: Dean Parisot
Length: 91 mins
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| © Madman - excellent fun! |
Hey dudes! They're back! The awesomely bodacious duo of Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are visited by the ruler of the future who tells them they must write a song to save the universe before the entire space/time continuum unravels. So it's back to the trusty phone booth to travel through time, visiting their future selves, with an aim to steal the song from themselves. En route they gather a motley assortment of musos including Mozart, Louis Armstrong, Jimi Hendrix and more. Their feisty daughters are also devising schemes to save their beloved Dads. Surprisingly, this is a total Tardis-full of fun, with so much silliness, energy, nose-thumbing at sci-fi tropes, and of course the phrases we've grown to love like, "No way - yes way!" With an unexpectedly touching finale, totally suited to these troubled times, this could be just the light-hearted nonsense you need to lift you out of the Covid blues. Sure was for me.3.5 - well recommended
Words on Bathroom Walls
Dir: Thor Freudenthal
Length: 100 mins
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| © putting a face on schizophrenia |
Adam (Charlie Plummer) is a smart young teen who also happens to be schizophrenic. He is accepted into a new school, but only on the proviso he takes an experimental medication to keep his paranoid episodes under control. When he befriends clever Maya (Taylor Russell), he learns that he doesn't need to be defined by his illness. Although the arc of the teen romance is nicely handled, there's nothing ground-breaking here, but what is brilliantly captured by the director is a visual sense of what it could feel like to be constantly seeing images of people (they seem like other selves within Adam), and hearing the conflicting voices telling him what to do. There's a terrific turn by Andy Garcia as a compassionate priest, and a wonderful speech delivered by Adam that really enables people to empathise with his challenges in life. Russell and Plummer are wonderful together, and the film shines a compassionate light into a dark, often misunderstood place.4 - highly recommended
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