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Reviews
Married/Unmarried (2001)
Unsavory movie, but awesome performances
What a difficult movie to watch, but at the same time magnetic... This is due to the immensely unlikable characters in it, combined with exceptional performances.
The relationship between the married couple is perhaps less interesting than the one happening between the unmarried one. Just because Ben Daniels (Danny) makes a heck of a misogynist be amazingly watchable. Spectacularly gorgeous here, and being a sweetie in real life, emphasizes his staggering capacity to turn baddie. Also the actress playing Kim is outstanding.
The film looks very stylish and benefits from that.
It's not in any way a movie to be liked, it's impossible to like it. One can only admire the performances and wish never to be in a similar situation.
Because a guy like Danny is really dangerous, and magnetic, to the point of making someone stay in a totally destructive relationship, without being able to leave him. Until one day you end up dead. Fortunately it doesn't happen in the movie.
A definite warning to destructive relationships. Unbearable!
The Hollow Crown: Richard III (2016)
This time I really loved it
Excellent adaptation of Richard III with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role.
Having seen the previous episode of the Hollow Crown (Henry VI part 2) and disliked it very much, I had to steel myself to be able to put behind in my mind the haunting images endured in HVI-2.
But the portrait of Gloucester by Ben. Cumberbatch in HVI-2 was really good, so I was hopeful that he could carry RIII very well.
And so it proved to be. From the first images to the final ones I felt inside the play, transported to every scene. Tension mounting in my mind until the very end.
I loved everybody's acting, although I usually prefer more expressive iambic pentameters than those that were spoken. But in this case the delivery of the text in a naturalistic way worked very well.
Contrary to what I was expecting from watching HVI-2, I was not on RIII side, simply because he revealed himself since the beginning as the unsavory character that he is.
The toned down visual violence in relation to HVI-2 let the text breath and poetry shone deliciously during the whole play, except obviously during the brief wordless fighting at the Bosworth battle, which I watched with eyes semi-wide shut (Blurworth battle).
Outstanding acting came from Ben. Cumberbatch, Sophie Okonedo, Ben Daniels, Keeley Hawes. I thought Judi Dench was somehow subdued in the role of Cecily. But maybe having seen so much in her live she was simply portrayed as having no more tears or emotion to share.
Also liked Catesby more than I usually do. It's not easy to serve a master like RIII and remain faithful until the end and the actor playing him did it very well.
I feel a bit guilty of having given 1 star to Henry VI part 2, but images from that play haunted me for days, like Adrian Dunbar's head on a pike and so on. It seems I'm reacting in a bi-polar way to these adaptations. One un-watchable, the next exceptional. Maybe I just learned to close my eyes in the right moment. But it's not only that. Maybe the difference is in the quality of the play, RIII being much better than HVI-2. Whatever it was, I definitely loved this adaptation. Which makes me think, should I watch Henry VI part I? Something I would never consider after seeing HVI-2...
There were a few things that I missed in RIII. He doesn't say "I'm not in the vein", for instance. And the allusions to Edward IV's and Hastings mistress are gone. But there is so much to savour that this are minor quibbles.
A most definite TEN!
The Hollow Crown: Henry VI Part 2 (2016)
wanted so much to like it
What can I say...
Really wanted to like it so much and had one of the biggest scares of my life. I didn't watch Part I of Henry VI.
But Part 2 is hideously violent. OK, it was meant to be violent, it is the War of the Roses. But the violence totally supplanted the poetry.
Everything was cut. Heads, limbs, throats, and worse of all the poetry, the attachment to any character...
Only Queen Margaret was left pleading for less mediocrity on her Lancastrian side and obviously Richard Gloucester, who was the only one who spoke anything interesting and seemed to have a plan.
Result: I couldn't give a damn for the lives of anyone in the play and am really on Gloucester's side when the next episode (Richard III) comes out next week. Which is the first time this happens for me, Richard is meant to be an astute dictator whom we love to hate. But I was never on his side!
Well I hate everyone on Henry VI part2, but Gloucester is clever and I'm rooting for him to do with all the imbeciles he encounters in his own play.
At least he will be able to speak poetry.
Pity he won't live to get rid of Henry VIII!
If the BBC is trying to make Shakespeare without including poetry in it, then they should add a warning for Richard III, because in this play it is everywhere:
Attention: This work may contain traces of poetry!
Declaration: I detest be-headings!!!!! And tribal imbecility!!!! Which was what I saw in Henry VI Part 2!!!