By Anne Brodie
Opening with an admiring tribute to Vera, who leaves us this week. Not only is the uber talented Brenda Blethyn ending the beloved series, the final season now on BritBox is only TWO episodes! Thank goodness all 14 seasons are available on the service. Vera, based on the character created by Ann Cleeves, stands out in her role as a Chief Detective in Northumberland for several seasons – first of all, she’s a woman and an elder, she’s in a position of power, brainy as can be, has an innate sense of human behaviour and she’s not warm and cuddly. No, no, she is a truthteller, damn your feelings, almost pathologically solitary and barely endures others. Thankfully she’s partnered with an understanding sidekick DS Joe Ashworth (David Leon) and before him DS Joe Ashworth (Kenny Doughty). In learning to accept her boundaries and knowing her deep skillset, they are fiercely loyal to her. The final two episodes of the series are as powerful as ever. Ep 1, S14 opens with the drowning death of a teenaged boy, found in his bathtub surrounded by wildflowers artfully arranged. He was placed there with precision. The boy’s teacher, new in town, rents his family’s clifftop cabin and falls under suspicion. Then the teacher is found drowned, the next in a chain of sudden deaths. Vera gathers that intellectual might as we marvel at her powers of deduction. Ep 2, S14 finds Vera on the case of the murder of a residential schoolgirl whose body is found by The Dark Wives standing stones on a windswept plain. Suspects abound and one of them turns up dead. There’s a fun tribute to Vera in the name of a pub where the team goes – without her – for a brew. And we see her for the first time as a young girl who dreams of being in the police despite her father’s strong discouragement. Production values remain extremely high. The cinematography interprets the harsh seaside Northumberland UK landscape as Vera’s equal in power and judicious editing allows us to pause on a scene as long as we need to extract its goodness. A marvel. And a satisfying closer. So long, Vera/Brenda. Thank you!
Iranian Mohammad Rasoulof’s political thriller The Seed of the Sacred Fig was shot entirely in secret. In 2022, the Tehran based filmmaker was arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging, a fine and confiscation of his property for criticizing the country’s crackdown on women’s rights. He escaped and fled to Europe then took the film to a triumph at Cannes and went on to win 23 awards and 49 nominations. It lands in Canadian theatres today. It’s a stunning, serious piece with themes of oppression, paranoia, madness and family – two hours and 47 minutes long. You won’t want to miss a moment, the daunting length is never an issue, there is no unnecessary footage, no ornamentation – just heart pounding, solid drama. Missagh Zareh is Iman a government spy basically, whose wife and three daughters’ worlds are upended during the Women Life Freedom street protests. He warns them never to step out of line or shame him as he would lose his job and reputation and put themselves in real physical danger. No social media, no involvement with the protests, keep a clean slate. Their mother Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) knows them better and implores them to behave, but they defy her, endlessly watching the protests on their cells and out the window, wanting to take part. Sana and Rezvan (Missagh Zareh and Setareh Maleki) act out, leaving their father open to certain peril; he’s an important player in the regime holding down women’s rights. He buys a gun. Najmeh is horrified but doesn’t tell the girls; they discover it in a laundry hamper and confront him. The gun goes missing soon after. Tension soar as he seeks to find out who is lying, who took it? In a fury he takes them to an isolated cave to get the truth out of them. The nearly three-hour length goes by like that – superb performances, excellent depictions of western ways threatening traditional ways, the divides in Iran, generational, political and personal and what happens when a family falls to pieces. It will leave you breathless.
Two great contemporary actors, Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, give a masterclass in acting in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door (his first English language film). Martha and Ingrid two lifelong friends – both writers – a war correspondent and an auto fiction author – who haven’t seen each other in years. When Ingrid learns Martha is dying of cancer she rushes to to her side; Martha’s undergoing experimental treatments. Their long overdue, sweet reunion is turned on its head when Martha asks Ingrid to be with her when she ends her life; the treatments aren’t working. Initially repulsed, Ingrid agrees. They rent a stunning Cubist home in a forest and enjoy long conversations and philosophical exchanges, lie in the sun, remember Damian a “shared” boyfriend (John Turturro), art, music, poetry, books and the gamut of their lives until Martha makes a mistake and scares Ingrid. Ingrid meets with Damian to update him and he counters with his anger with his son for bringing a third child into the world, delivering a wrenching monologue about the hopeless state of the planet via pollution and climate change, political extremism and carelessness. It’s a highlight of this intense film. Things continue to go dark at the rental, Martha’s shock and anger at her illness consume her while Ingrid ponders her legal status as she helps with euthanasia. This is strong stuff, painfully real and maybe not for certain audiences, but its also strangely comforting watching two people traverse what so many in this world do. Very strong stuff. Theatres Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver before national rollout.
I wonder what Goethe would think of José Lourenço’s Young Werther, an odd, whimsical adaptation of the German writer’s first novel, the 1774 tragic romance? Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a renowned polymath – poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic – who might have scratched his head at it and present-day Toronto, plainly identifiable as its wonderful, unique self. Douglas Booth and Alison Pill as Werther and Charlotte have begun a flirtation. She’s engaged to be married but neglects to tell him as he falls in love with her. His hope turns on its head with her betrayal on learning the truth. He knows she’s a little in love with him, maybe a lot. We the audience, cheer them on, knowing something’s got to give. Charlotte’s sister Sissy (Iris Apatow) has a crush on him that adds to the awkwardness in their wobbly love side hustle. Charlotte’s fiancé Albert (Patrick J. Adams) remains confident she won’t stray and tolerates their intense friendship until … The film’s whimsical, brightly coloured eccentricity in the vein of Wes Anderson is successful at times and over-eager at others. Werther is appealing if occasionally bumptious, and determines to win her for himself, whatever the cost.
Netflix’ mystery chiller Missing You is worthy. We all know how masterful is British drama and this one certainly is, and runs high in the jolts-per-second manner. Revered Detective Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar) mourns the disappearance of her fiancé Josh (Ashley Walters) eleven years prior. And when lifelong friend Acqua (trans actor Mary Malone) strongly suggests she join a dating app, she does so reluctantly and suffers the shock of her life. There he is. He left around the same time her senior police officer father (Lenny Henry) was murdered. She suspects a contract killer named LeBurne did the deed and dives into the dormant case; she will confront him in prison and ask who hired him. She finds a backdoor route and begins a private investigation, papering her apartment with graphics, mug shots, timelines. A new young officer helps her and a young man turns up at her door to say his mother has disappeared and he believes Josh – or whoever he is now – is holding her hostage in Costa Rica. Meanwhile a man chased through farmers fields is captured, hogtied and left hanging, alive. He’s not alone. Hmmm. Kat’s father’s murder is the central theme amd the idea of the nature of evil. And suddenly a new suspect Calligan (James Nesbitt), a full on psycho appears. Yikes.
CBC in partnership with APTN and Netflix launches a new sitcom that goes where no sitcom has gone before – to Iqaluit, Nunavut, the “top of the world”. North of North (indeed) follows an engaging, sassy and independent young wife and mother of two Siaja (Anna Lambe) who cherishes big dreams of expanding beyond Ice Cove, her small Inuk community. Nothing’s going to stop her, especially her husband who believes he can tell her what to do, how to do it, when to do it and for how long. He fails to recognise that she’s fed up, and she walks out on him in front of the entire village during a community celebration. She and her two children bunk with her patient mother, who warns her against freeloading, and gets herself a job at the local dump, hauling oversize appliances. By herself. One day in town she meets a handsome older guy and they kiss. Only later does she learn who he is to her utter astonishment – and her mother’s. Zippy, optimistic, funny and warm and also stars Maika Harper, Keira Belle Cooper, Kelly William, Braeden Clarke, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jay Ryan, Zorga Qaunaq, Bailey Poching and Nutaaq Doreen Simmonds. North of North, created, executive produced and written by Inuit writers and producers Stacey Aglok MacDonald, and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril it features stunning updated traditional Inuit gear designed by local artists, in vivid hues, that I’d love to get my hands on. Plus a great soundtrack with music from indigenous artists Tanya Tagaq, Varna GL, Riit, Joshua Haulli, Elisapie, PIQSIQ, Tarrak, and Shawnee Kish. Now broadcasting on the CBC Tuesdays, streaming on CBC Gem, and on Netflix in the spring.
Love disco or hate it, the exhilarating documentary on the dance craze that rocked the world in the 70s is pure joy! Disco’s Revenge from writer directors Peter Mishara and Omar Majeed dives into the music dance craze that dominated the 70s. Interviews with celebs of the day including Nile Rodgers, Jellybean Benítez, Billy Porter puts the lifestyle in context, New York in the 70’s, AIDs, gay and women’s liberation, a time of buzzing cultural upheaval. The Canadian made doc explores the five Ws of that unique global sensation, the music, new sounds, new ways of using instruments to reinvent the beat, new ways of thinking and an alternative to the Big Hair bands. It was an inclusive lifestyle, dancing the night away with fellow revellers, disco ball above sending light rays spinning, the joy of the new, the polarising effect it had on youth culture and the backlash. The “Disco sucks!” movement only encouraged the trend. All the rock stars were making disco records – even the Rolling Stones. Disco also created a new social hierarchy; if you were allowed through the door of Studio 54, the mecca of disco, you were ok. But the street was filled nightly with people begging to get in and never making it. They didn’t get in because they didn’t meet owner Steve Rubells’ expectations of appearance, dress, whatever or he was just messing with them. So, you got to see Bianca Jagger ride a horse onto the dance floor or you didn’t. A precious few years of disco and then it ended, an unnatural death. Disco’s Revenge is wonderfully uplifting – like the music or not, you can’t help but have your mood improved listening to it! Such fun and well made. On most digital platforms now.