Posts Tagged ‘Claire Foy’

The Magic Faraway Tree

Director: Ben Gregor

Cast: Claire Foy, Andrew Garfield, Rebecca Ferguson, Nicola Coughlan, Nonso Anozie, Jennifer Saunders, Jessica Gunning, Michael Palin, Lenny Henry, Billie Gadsdon, Simon Russell Beale, Phoenix Laroche, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Claire Keelan, Delilah Bennett-Cardy, Dustin Demri-Burns, Hiran Abeysekera

Running Time: 1 hour and 50 minutes

Film Rating: 6 out of 10

Despite big stars like Oscar nominee Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge, Tick, Tick…. Boom!) and Golden Globe and Emmy Winner Claire Foy (The Crown) being attached to this British fantasy film, The Magic Faraway Tree based on an adapted screenplay by Wonka & Paddington 2 screenwriter Simon Farnaby based upon a children’s book by Enid Blyton, this film comes across as uneven and strange.

The Magic Faraway Tree was part of a series of children’s books published by Enid Blyton between 1939 and 1951 long before the invention of the internet. In director Ben Gregor’s 2026 film version the central theme seems to be to lure young British children away from their iPads, game boys and screens to rediscover the magic of nature. In this case a magical tree filled with pixies, fairies and secret lands.

When Polly and Tim Thompson lose their jobs in expensive London they are forced to move to the country far away from WIFI, sophistication or Instagram. Their three children Fran played by Billie Gadsdon, Joe played by Phoenix Laroche, and the angry teenage eldest Beth expertly played by Delilah Bennett-Cardy are initially horrified about moving to the middle of nowhere whereby their useless father, well played by Andrew Garfield has a notion to grow tomatoes for pasta sauce as a means of survival.

Soon adventure abounds when Fran meets Silky, a voluptuous blonde fairy wonderfully played by Nicola Coughlan and she leads the impressionable young girl into the faraway tree whereby she encounters Mr Saucepan played by Dustin Denri-Burns and Moonface played by Nonso Anozie. These magical creatures lead Fran up to various different lands including Goody land and Birthday land.

Fran soon convinces her brother and sulky teenage sister to join her whereby they go to birthday land and make wishes in which one of them will undo their parents’ hard work at being self-sustainable by growing tomatoes for a tomato pasta business.

The fantasy scenes in this film are totally bizarre and silly. The world building is non-existent. The pastoral scenes of the English countryside are beautifully done and are the director’s strongpoint. Garfield and Foy do their best as wacky unconventional parents and then there is a weird cameo by the Absolutely Fabulous star Jennifer Saunders as the wealthy grandmother who speaks with a German accent.

As the children seek to reverse a dreadful wish and revive the promising tomato crop, they get caught up in the world of the evil Dame Slap, a caricature appearance by Rebecca Ferguson, who does not seem comfortable acting in such a bizarre film. Ferguson should stick to action films.

There are brief appearances by Michael Palin and Lenny Henry but unfortunately The Magic Faraway Tree does not stand sturdy as an engaging cinematic adventure and comes across as a contrived pastiche of fantasy worlds in which the director is trying to drive home the notion that young people in the 21^st century should have less screen time and more time in nature.

The best thing about the film are the young stars, while the adults come across as goofy.

Unfortunately The Magic Faraway Tree does not translate well into a film in 2026. Luckily Enid Blyton is not alive to see this fluorescently flawed rendition of her wonderful children stories.

The Magical Faraway Tree gets a film rating of 6 out of 10 and is unfortunately not that good. The fantasy is weird and the screen adaption should have kept the original tale in the 1940’s or 1950’s. To update this children’s tale to the 2020’s is the screenwriter’s first mistake.

All of Us Strangers

Director: Andrew Haigh

Cast: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, Jamie Bell

Running Time: 1 hour and 45 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

45 Years director Andrew Haigh perfectly adapts the Japanese novel Strangers written by the late writer Taichi Yamada, originally published in 1987 into a superb contemporary British film retitled All of Us Strangers, featuring a lonely screenwriter Adam who psychologically has to relive the trauma of his parents death, played by Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) and Claire Foy (First Man, Women Talking), when he meets a gorgeous yet troubled young man Harry in an isolated apartment building in modern day London.

Adam wonderfully played by Andrew Scott (1917, Spectre) in his first ever leading role, encapsulates all the trauma, isolation, desire and loneliness of a middle aged single gay man as he falls in love fleetingly with the sexy hunk Harry played with mesmerizing screen presence by Oscar nominee Paul Mescal (Aftersun).

In a bizarre emotional twist, All of Us Strangers features a grown up Adam confronting his late parents in some intimate scenes in which he comes out as gay to his mother and tries desperately to form an emotional bond with his father. Adam’s parents were conventional people in 1980’s England who died before they had a chance to watch their only son grow up and forge his own sexual identity.

Issues of prejudice, fear and loneliness pervade Andrew Haigh’s slow burning tale of one man’s excruciating emotional journey of coming to terms with childhood trauma, triggered by his abundant desire for Harry, a beautiful whiff of a soul, that glimmers on the edges of Adam’s existence long enough for desire to linger and short enough to eliminate any longevity.

Similar to director Tom Ford’s A Single Man, but certainly not as stylish, Andrew Haigh delivers a remarkably interesting and deceptive film about gay love, acceptance and remorse as Adam takes the audience on a poignant romantic journey cut short by his own desire to reconnect with his shattered past.

All of Us Strangers is a slow burning tale about a gay man’s search for his elusive emotional centre in an isolating metropolis while he is continually taunted by the past and haunted by recent desire.

This very art house love story is both fascinating and at times tricky, but it will be sure to pull audiences in to a complex love story with the past and with a future in which everything is different now.

All of Us Strangers gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and see it for Paul Mescal, who is amazing. Recommended for a niche audience, but beautifully acted with a catchy 1980’s soundtrack.  

The Girl in the Spiders Web

Director: Fede Alvarez

Cast: Claire Foy, Sylvia Hoeks (Blade Runner 2049), Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out), Stephen Merchant (Logan), Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), Sverrir Gudnasson (Borg McEnroe), Claes Bang (The Square)

For some reason I find Scandinavian films particularly dark and bleak. Maybe it’s their weather.

Director Fede Alvarez’s brutal retelling of Lisbeth Salander’s twisted family in The Girl in the Spiders Web is more like a female Bourne film than something as disturbing as the original 2011 English version film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo featuring an outstanding performance by Rooney Mara opposite Daniel Craig.

This time The Crown star Claire Foy fresh from her brilliant performance in Damien Chazelle’s First Man takes up the diverse role of Lisbeth Salander the tattooed hacker with a penchant for being one step ahead of her evil adversaries.

Blade Runner 2049 star Sylvia Hoeks plays Lisbeth’s malicious sister Camilla who trots around Stockholm in a fabulous red outfit and feels nothing for slitting people’s throats.

Swedish star Sverrir Gudnasson plays the young Mikael Blomkvist, the Millennium investigative journalist who comes to Lisbeth’s aid. Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps plays a younger version of Erika Berger whose screen time is unfortunately severely limited.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web is not as palatable or exciting as the 2011 film or the excellent Swedish versions of the original trilogy although Claire Foy demonstrates her range as Lisbeth Salander and her unquestionable ability to play an action star.

The violence is ruthless, the plot slightly confusing especially for audiences that have not seen The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but this updated film gives a fresh crop of young European and British actors a chance to tackle a nefarious Swedish thriller.

The Girl in the Spiders Web is really held together by Claire Foy and an exceptional Sylvia Hoeks aided by a superb performance by Christopher Convery as child prodigy and code breaker August Balder.

Given the excellent cast, The Girl in the Spiders Web could have been so brilliant, but Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez doesn’t quite held the intricate thematic strands of this web together.

The Girl in the Spiders Web gets a film rating of 6 out of 10 and is recommended for those that enjoy a murky Swedish thriller, which ultimately lacks panache and passion.

First Man

Director: Damien Chazelle

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Corey Stoll, Ciaran Hinds, Kyle Chandler, Patrick Fugit, Christopher Abbott, Olivia Hamilton, Pablo Schreiber, Shea Whigham, Lukas Haas, Corey Michael Smith

Thanks to a preview screening organized by United International Pictures at Suncoast Cinecentre, Durban, I was fortunate enough to see director Damien Chazelle’s highly anticipated Neil Armstrong biopic First Man starring an excellent Ryan Gosling and Golden Globe winner Claire Foy as his wife Janet Armstrong.

First Man was based on an intelligently written screenplay by Josh Singer based upon the James R. Hansen book First Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong.

In the space race between America and the Soviets in the 1960’s, there was a desperate bid to successfully land a man on the moon, a pledge that iconic President John F. Kennedy made to the American public which in turn put pressure on NASA to not only train astronauts but successfully prepare them physically, psychologically and emotionally for a lunar trip.

What the Oscar winning director of La La Land Damien Chazelle does so beautifully is contrast the massive effort and technical implications of sending men to the moon with a complex family drama about Neil and Janet Armstrong as they desperate recover from the death of their young daughter Karen from a Brain Tumour.

Not only does this tragedy pull on the fabric of their marriage, but its Neil Armstrong’s absolute determination that he is going to be the first man on the moon and be the best astronaut America has ever seen. Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling (La La Land, Half Nelson) gives a nuanced performance as Neil Armstrong, a father continually haunted by the death of his young daughter while the moon taunts him every evening, as if to say when are you actually coming to visit me?

Janet Armstrong superbly played by Claire Foy who deserves an Oscar nomination for her performance grows increasingly frantic at the prospect that while she has to be a mother to two young boys, there is a real danger that her husband might not return from a dangerous mission to the moon because of the infinite dangers involved.

In contrast to the familial tension at home, the actual attempts to get to the moon are impressively captured onscreen with mesmerizing sound effects suitably accompanied by an incredible musical score by Oscar winner Justin Hurwitz (La La Land) which truly makes First Man a remarkable and utterly impressionable film – This is truly great cinema held together by cerebral images and perfect on point portrayals of Neil and Janet Armstrong by  Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy, who both brilliantly hold the film together emotionally and psychologically.

Audiences should watch out for a superb cameo by Corey Stoll as the outspoken Buzz Aldrin who feels nothing about remarking about an astronaut’s failure at his own funeral or how he was not a good pilot.

First Man is a complex, intelligently directed portrayals of one of the defining moments of the 20^th century – Neil Armstrong’s historic walk on the Moon and the build up which preceded this significant event.

Highly recommended viewing, First Man receives a film rating of 9.5 out of 10 and is truly a cinematic achievement that will take audiences literally to the moon and back. Utterly superb.

The Lady in the Van

Director: Nicholas Hytner

Cast: Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam, Frances de la Tour, Jim Broadbent, Claire Foy, Dominic Cooper, James Corden, Stephen Campbell Moore

The Madness of King George director Nicolas Hytner brings to the screen the hilarious and bizarre autobiographical stage play by Alan Bennett, The Lady in The Van about an itinerant and basically transient lady who wilfully parks her colourful van outside Bennett’s smart Victorian townhouse in Gloucester Crescent in Camden Town, North London in the beginning of the 1970’s and then stays for fifteen years.

The Lady in question is Margaret Shepherd, wonderfully played against type by Oscar winner Dame Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, California Suite) who is already garnering critical acclaim for her role. Dame Maggie Smith has more recently been reintroduced to a whole new generation of fans with her portrayal of Violet Crawley, The Dowager Countess of Grantham in the hit BBC TV series by Julian Fellowes Downton Abbey.

In The Lady in the Van, which is semi-autobiographical, the cantankerous and destitute old lady who seems to live her whole life in a van forms an unimaginable bond with famed British playwright, Alan Bennett who incidentally also wrote the screenplay for this film and the Oscar nominated Madness of King George.

In a typically English way of dealing with the semi-transient, The Lady in the Van self-reflexively explores themes of old age, homelessness and caring whilst giving the destitute a sort of vagabond nobility, whilst Bennett and the actor playing Bennett never morally judges the situation as inexcusable despite what the neighbours think.

British stage and TV actor Alex Jennings (The Queen, Wings of the Dove, Belle) plays Alan Bennett but the film belongs to Dame Maggie whose wonderfully acerbic performance elevates her dire situation as a homeless woman living in a van to that of eternal royalty. Only Dame Maggie can pull off this type of role, with a combination of poignancy, passion and dignity, making The Lady in the Van a delightful treat for all those lovers of British cinema.

All the best lines in The Lady in the Van are naturally reserved for Dame Maggie and whilst the rest of the cast merely contribute as a collage of colourful and eccentric Londoners including cameos by Dominic Cooper, Claire Foy, Stephen Campbell Moore, Frances de la Tour, Roger Allam and Oscar winner Jim Broadbent as a corrupt cop intent on extorting money from the mysterious and often rude Lady in the Van.

Whilst the directorial embellishments of Nicholas Hytner can be forgiven, it is the masterful script by Allan Bennett, which is so witty and droll, that makes The Lady in the Van such a pleasurable cinematic experience. Of course Dame Maggie Smith fires on all cylinders in this critically acclaimed performance by an actress who has given audiences so many memorable performances in such films as A Room with a View, Ladies in Lavender, Gosforth Park, Evil Under the Sun and more recently The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

The Lady in the Van is highly recommended viewing for those that love a slightly irreverent British drama, wonderfully acted and beautifully written by the man who had to endure this mysterious woman on his doorstep for almost fifteen years.