Tag Archives: Emily Watson

Capsules, Channel 366

CHANNEL 366: THE THIRD DAY (2020)

Leave a comment

DIRECTED BY: Marc Munden, Felix Barrett, Philippa Lowthorpe

FEATURING: Jude Law, , Katherine Waterston, ,

PLOT: Sam, a bereaved father, saves a suicidal girl and returns her to her home on a remote strip of land off the English coast, only to discover an undercurrent of violence and a weird theology permeating the island. Months later, mother Helen brings her children to the island for a vacation that quickly goes from bad to worse.

Still from "The Third Day" (2020)

COMMENTS: One of the most beloved tropes of horror is the character who goes somewhere—a room, a house, a portal to hell—that no reasonable, clear-thinking person would dare to tread. Part of the joy of the creepy-town variant is that no place is safe; every entrance you make is a bad idea. When Jude Law motors across the rarely appearing causeway that takes him away from the normal, safe world and into the strange island village of Osea, he’s making the classic horror-movie hero journey—and the classic mistake. And when Naomie Harris repeats the trek three episodes later, the audience has to be flat-out screaming “Don’t go in there!” at the screen. (Osea, incidentally, is a real place. Their public relations reps have much to answer for.)

In some respects, The Third Day is two deliberately different shows. (Actually, three. We’ll get to the third one in a moment.) “Summer”, the first three installments starring Law and directed by Marc Munden, mix a persistent sense of dread with a bizarre color palette. The landscape is a perpetual mossy green and dishwater blue, but other colors are riotously bold, as if the very look of the place is conspiring to keep Law’s discombobulated traveler Sam off balance. (Dropping acid, he will learn, does not help.) It is in this first act that we will learn that this community has a very particular theology that is directly related to Sam and the personal tragedy that his thrown his life into chaos. Though there is violence and shocking imagery, the look of the show reflects the town’s view of itself: a paternalistic flock welcoming a lost sheep back into the fold.

Harris’ arrival in “Winter” (with Philippa Lowthorpe now directing) is a significant contrast. Mirroring the weather, the village has turned cold and cracked, with whatever pleasant disposition that might have existed gone and the entire community in a dither over a forthcoming childbirth. The town is more clearly adversarial now, and unlike Sam, Harris’ Helen is not so easily thrown off her game. Of course, the two outsiders’ fates are intertwined, and it will take a fair amount of recriminations and violence to resolve their situation.

The Third Day falls neatly within the popular “outsider goes to strange little northern European village” genre associated with The Wicker Man or Midsommar, and most of the show’s power comes from an ever-present vibe of discomfort seasoned with folk cult horror that intentionally distances the hero and viewer alike. The island’s faith is a bizarre corruption of Christianity peppered with Continue reading CHANNEL 366: THE THIRD DAY (2020) →

List Candidates, Reader Recommendations

READER RECOMMENDATION: PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002)

Leave a comment

Reader recommendation by “Brad”

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Adam Sandler, , , Luis Guzman

PLOT: Business owner Barry Egan (Sandler) deals with anger issues, seven abusive sisters, a sex phone con artist, and the appearance of a strange harmonium all while falling in love with a mysterious, yet sympathetic woman (Watson).

Still from Punch-drunk Love (2002)
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: With its lead’s compulsive abrupt violent behavior, an uneasy sense of loneliness, abstract color schemes by Jeremy Blake, and a wonderfully weird soundtrack by Jon Brion, this film is highly off-kilter for a romantic comedy.

COMMENTS: Paul Thomas Anderson followed up his dramatic masterpiece Magnolia with this small-scale arthouse comedy/drama/character study. Adam Sandler was chosen for the role of troubled lead Barry Egan. Unlike the typical crude humor Sandler is known for, here he uses a restrained, subtle performance to capture Egan’s tantrums, loneliness, and troubled life. Egan is a unhappy business owner balancing work and his seven abusive sisters who taunt him about being gay and continuously call him at work. Barry comes across a harmonium that was sat on the side of the road by a mysterious van following an out of nowhere car crash (foreshadowing a later car crash with Sandler and Watson). Later, we explore Barry’s loneliness and his paranoia when he calls a sex phone operator who later begins to con Barry out of money, threatening and later sending out a group of brothers hired as hitmen to rough Egan up. This blackmail operation is ran by the “Mattress Man” (Philip Seymour Hofffman, in a hilarious role). Egan ends up meeting a mysterious, beautiful young woman, Lena (Watson) through his sister, the same woman earlier in the film he briefly talked to about leaving her car. He begins to fall in love over the course of the film attending a date at a restaurant that ends with them kicked out due to his uncontrollable temper. He then follows her to Hawaii, using frequent flyer miles earned from buying pudding. The hitmen are later defeated after a car crash wounds Lena, who is hospitalized. Barry confront the Mattress Man in a hilarious final showdown. The film ends with Barry running back to Lena, confessing all his problems and promising to never leave  again. Too weird to be a mainstream rom-com, too unpredictable and arthouse to please everyone, Paul Thomas Anderson retains his courage for experimenting with film and pulls an actual performance from Sandler. This is a MUST EXPERIENCE for any film fan looking to step outside the usual boundaries set by mainstream romantic comedy/dramas.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a weirdly sweet little love story… Anderson also throws in dark complications, including a sinister phone-sex scam, Barry’s strangely surreal sisters, his pudding-purchasing obsession and some very odd pillow talk.”–Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times (contemporaneous)