Tag Archives: Barry Keoghan

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CAPSULE: BIRD (2024)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Nukiya Adams, Franz Rogowski,

PLOT: Twelve-year-old Bailey comes of age among a family of social outcasts, feeling like an outsider until she finds hope in her acquaintance  with an enigmatic boy named Bird.

Still from Bird (2024)

COMMENTS:  British cinema has always had a fondness towards the marginalized. Since the late fifties and sixties, kitchen sink realism has put the working class on the foreground. Contemporary movies have portrayed social outcasts, too: in Marxist terms, the sub-proletarians (the poorest of the working class) and lumpenproletarians (a group without class consciousness—criminals, the chronically unemployed—a distinct class below the workers). Andrea Arnold’s most recent feature film tackles the subject of coming-of-age in such an environment while maintaining a lighthearted tone, in a similar vein to Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper (2023).  Both films combine the harshest aspects of reality with a healthy dose of fairy tale magical realism, a merging of styles that seems to be a tendency in contemporary British cinema.

Bird‘s plot revolves around a twelve-year-old Bailey. It is clear from the beginning that she feels like an outsider even in her own family, who are already a band of misfits. Her father plans a wedding with his latest girlfriend, ignoring Bailey’s wants, and her brother is preoccupied with his criminal gang and refuses to include her because she is too young. Feeling lonely and angry with the world, Bailey finds comfort and inspiration in animals. That is, until she meets Bird, an enigmatic young man looking for his own parents.

Bird is a mysterious person with an even more obscure past. He is an angelic figure, always willing to help. He is also a bird trapped in a human body. The way he finds comfort by standing still on top of buildings or walls is uncanny. Every now and then his expressions and movements imitate those of a bird, especially when, in a late choreography of desperation, he turns around like a fowl with broken wings. He is more than he seems, although his origin and true nature remain open to interpretation.

Bird drives the plot, but Bailey is the main character. The camera follows her around in her wandering misadventures, while short flashbacks offer windows into her inner thoughts. Bird is essentially her coming-of-age tale, showcasing landmarks of her physical transformation into a woman—her first period—as well as her mental maturation. Birds and the eponymous boy will play a major role in the latter. Birds are not only symbols of freedom, but become agents of a change; the film has an animistic worldview.

In the end, Bailey finds her place. A joyous conclusion  pays respects to family, however unconventional they seem at first glance. Bird stands out as a unique combination of social and magical realism, but it won’t appeal to hardcore fans of the weird and the bizarre. For those that love their social realism with a touch of poetry, though, it merits a recommendation.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The introduction of surrealism has the ironic effect of breaking the spell that has marked Arnold’s best films… A resolutely realistic filmmaker turning to magical realism has the uncomfortable effect of making the whole movie… feel inauthentic.”–Jake Coyle, AP (contemporaneous)

Bird [Blu-ray]

Bird [Blu-ray]

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Capsules

CAPSULE: HURRY UP TOMORROW (2025)

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DIRECTED BY: Trey Edward Shults

FEATURING: Abel Tesfaye, Jenna Ortega,

PLOT: A pop megastar who’s spiraling downward after a bad breakup has a one-night stand with an unhinged, obsessed fan.

Still from Hurry Up Tomorrow (2025)

COMMENTS: Although Hurry up Tomorrow is pitched as a “psychological thriller,” you may want to dial down your expectations for the “psychological” part, while exercising extreme patience awaiting the eventual arrival of the “thriller” aspect. Capably directed by Trey Edward Shults (They Come at Night), the movie, about a pop star losing his mind, features a ton of style. The concert scenes are decent, but there is also a lot of bold-yet-hazy lighting, disorienting coked-up disco scenes, and a pan to a burning building that’s almost Tarkovskian. The problem is, all this great style is employed in service of a pedestrian script full of music industry cliches, self-indulgence, and less-than-profound psychological insights.

The semi-autobiographical screenplay, written by star Tesfaye in conjunction with Shults and “nightlife entrepreneur” Reza Fahim, makes a stab at serious soul-searching, but fails to connect with the average movie patron. Abel, our star, starts out already at the emotional bottom; devastated by the desertion of an unknown lover, he is not merely vulnerable, but utterly pathetic, demanding his loyal bro manager (Keoghan) call his estranged beau for him, since he’s tired of leaving pleading messages on her voicemail. Abel’s eternal moping eventually leads him into the arms of groupie Jenna Ortega, whom we have previously seen torching a house. (I believe Jenna has a backstory, but frankly, my mind drifted.) She’s not really a character so much as an accusation (her name is Amina, which you might notice is a quick letter shift away from her intended plot function). Ortega gives off big Misery energy, and after an opening hour of Abel pouting, botching performances, and swilling whisky, the third act finally gets the thriller element moving. There’s a dream sequence in there, but you probably won’t remember much about it except that they managed to shoot some quick scenes in a depopulated Los Angeles, in sort of a West Coast nod to Vanilla Sky. In the end, the movie all seems to be some sort of guilty confession from Abel about the way he’s treated women, with some hints about an absent father thrown in—typical “woe is me” multimillionaire rock star complaints. But Amina’s role as anima never really works properly, because (although he has a brief moment as a cad) Abel began the film already debased and contrite. There’s no comeuppance to be had. His character arc is flaccid, because the script wants us to sympathize with him right from the get-go, instead of working through the movie to earn our sympathy.

I confess that I had seen the trailer for Hurry up Tomorrow about a half-dozen times before I was informed that the film’s pop star star was none other than former Super Bowl halftime-featured songster The Weeknd. The movie’s target audience of Weeknd fans will certainly know this going in (and will know that there’s already a final Weeknd album with the title “Hurry up Tomorrow”). Apparently, Abel Tesfaye will be retiring “The Weeknd” moniker to work under his real name henceforth; this movie may be intended as a first salvo in this new phase of his career, which will presumably include a lot more acting. I assume fans will be reasonably satisfied with the offering here; there is one big production number (performed twice to open the fictional pop star’s concerts), samples of songs scattered throughout the film, and an a capella performance at the end that’s meant to be climactic, maybe even epiphantic. As far as his acting goes, Tesfaye is not bad, if not yet up to carrying a major film as a leading man. Casting him alongside top-notch thespians like Ortega and Keoghan may not have been the best way to showcase his talents, since it’s guaranteed his co-stars will steal every single scene he’s in. Hurry up Tomorrow’s title tempts easy put-downs, but the film is totally watchable, if underwhelming; an effort that will likely only score with Tesfaye’s most intractable fans. Others can, and should, skip it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…an exciting vanity project with surrealist imagination but stiff writing, no stakes, limited emotional weight and an unclear narrative.”–Maria Sherman, Associated Press/Newsday (comtemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by “Parmesan74 (letterboxd),” who guessed, based on the trailer, that it “seems to have the potential to be weird.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER (2017)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , , Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic

PLOT: A cardiologist’s odd relationship with a teenage boy reveals a secret about his past, and will lead him to a dilemma in the future.

Still from The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: Two-time Certified Weird director Giorgos Lanthimos never fails to deliver weirdness; it’s in his DNA. His first official stab at a horror movie is every bit as disturbing as you might hope—which is to say, every bit as disturbing as his comedies and dramas.

COMMENTS: The Killing of a Sacred Deer flips the script of The Lobster. That was a comedy with terrifying moments, while Deer is an unapologetic horror movie with a few funny bits (most of which come from blasé or inappropriate conversations about weighty or grotesque subjects). As is always the case with Lanthimos, what you notice first is the anti-acting acting style: the characters barely register emotions, and when they do express, say, marital tenderness, it’s strained, like they’re pod people trying to fake it to fool the humans. That’s the case here, where Steven, Colin Farrel’s cardiac surgeon, trudges through relationships with both Martin, a pleasant but mysterious teen boy, and his own family with the usual Lanthimos-imposed rigidity. This lack of humanity magnifies the mundanity of the family’s suburban existence. The drama is accented by heavy, obtrusive bursts of dissonant classical music (e.g., cue a Ligeti chord at the conclusion of mother/daughter conversation re: smartphones) to give it that ominous horror film feel. It sounds forced, but it’s effective; combined with the awkward interpersonal relations, the technique creates a real sense of dread that rises for nearly an hour before the first major revelation.

Despite the initially repressed thesping, an interesting thing happens in Deer. Delving into horror forces the director to allow his actors to reveal genuine feelings, however briefly. You can’t remain restrained and unreactive when faced with immediately horrific situations like mental or physical torture, however absurd the premise from which they flow might be. Farrell (and Kidman, but mainly Farrel) gets to play furious, frightened and bereaved here. The further into the plot they venture, the more emotions are unleashed, an unexpected progression that feels natural and satisfying.

Although this isn’t a thriller that depends on a twist, I still don’t want to give away too much of the plot. I think it will be more rewarding if the viewer is in the same position as Steven when Martin quickly and casually recites the rules of the game at a cafeteria. I will say that the tale involves a moral dilemma, of sorts. I also feel obliged to say that I found the final resolution unsatisfying, for reasons I can’t discuss in detail without crossing the border into spoiler territory. Let’s simply say that the way Lanthimos resolves the situation, though perhaps the only reasonable solution, allows the protagonist to avoid responsibility for his choices—a surprising cop-out in a movie otherwise so uncompromising, both formally and in its cruelty.

Before sailing to Troy, Agamemnon, the high king of the Greeks, unknowingly killed a deer that was sacred to the goddess Artemis. Angry, the goddess calmed the winds so that the fleets could not sail. To atone for his sin, she demanded that Agamemnon sacrifice his own beloved daughter, Iphigenia. Even though Steven’s daughter Kim got an “A” on her presentation on Iphigenia in class, it’s not necessary to know how that story ends (versions of the myth differ, anyway) to understand Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer. But the title is intentional foreshadowing that lets you know you’re in for something approaching classical tragedy—and if you know your ancient Greeks, you know they liked their tragedy gruesome. So do modern Greeks. They also like it a little weird.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…as things spun out of control, getting ever stranger, I started to wonder if the director had merely written himself into a corner and was doubling down on weirdness to get himself out. And yet the film never quite loses its mythic drive. You walk out feeling like you’ve truly had an experience.”–Bilge Ebiri, The Village Voice (contemporaneous)

The Killing of a Sacred Deer [Blu-ray]

The Killing of a Sacred Deer [Blu-ray]
  • A teenager's attempts to bring a brilliant surgeon into his dysfunctional family takes an unexpected turn.
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