David R. Walker

Posts Tagged ‘Sandra Huller’

Project Hail Mary

Directors: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung

Running Time: 2 hours and 36 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

22 Jump Street and The Lego Movie directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller land some star power in their new film Project Hail Mary in the form of triple Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson, La La Land, Barbie) as the main and possibly the only character Ryland Grace, a likable but reluctant saviour of the universe and maths teacher who is recruited by the government headed by Eva Stratt superbly played by German actress and Oscar nominee Sandra Huller (Anatomy of a Fall) whose sternness off set’s Ryland Grace’s goofiness.

Project Hail Mary is a very strange science fiction film in that there is only one main character Ryland Grace who heads off into outer space to save the earth from imminent demise as the sun is being destroyed by a microscopic alien species which is also killing off the stars.

Eleven light years away, Ryland Grace is stranded on a super space ship with enough artificial intelligence to sustain him. The only problem is that he is the only survivor on this trip. Think 2001, a Space Odyssey. Grace realizes that he has to save the earth by journeying to this distance star in the solar system where he encounters a friendly alien whom he calls Rocky, voiced by James Ortiz.

After some initial communication difficulties, Grace and Rocky, a crustacean type alien strike up an unlikely friendship as they band together to find a specific organism to send back to earth to rejuvenate the sun.

Drew Goddard’s screenplay based on The Martian writer Andy Weir’s novel is both confusing and funny, yet it doesn’t have sufficient conflict to keep a film going for 2 and a half hours.

What saves Project Hail Mary from being a bad space trip is the brilliant acting by Ryan Gosling who has the charisma and screen presence to sustain this film amidst absolutely spectacular visual effects.

Project Hail Mary is a confusing film with a non-linear story telling method which makes the narrative less compelling while the directors choose to emphasize the cool space ships and the weird technology over human relationships amidst impending doom.

Sandra Huller does her best in an extremely limited role but her star power fades next to that of Ryan Gosling who carries this lengthy film, which is definitely entertaining but is basically a lengthy and weird space bro film. Huller is more suited to intelligent European arthouse cinema than flashy American sci fi.

Project Hail Mary has stunning visuals and brilliant cinematography by Greig Fraser who won an Oscar for Dune in 2022. Unfortunately the script needed some work and the lack of a singularity of vision makes Project Hail Mary a bizarre space film which lacks urgency, action and emotional resonance.

If you love beautiful visual effects then watch Project Hail Mary but a lack of editing and a decent script causes this space drama to lose its shine.

Project Hail Mary gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10. It’s entertaining but not brilliant.

Anatomy of a Fall

Director: Justine Triet

Cast: Sandra Huller, Swann Arlaud, Samuel Theis, Milo Machado Graner, Antoine Reinartz, Jehnny Beth, Camille Rutherford

Running Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Languages: English & French

Festival: European Film Festival

French director Justine Triet’s riveting courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall won the coveted Palm d’Or at the 2023 Festival de Cannes and is a complex dissection of a marriage after it has abruptly ended.

The scenario is set up more like a philosophical question which generates more inquiry than any form of closure.

A couple live in a remote chalet in the French Alps. They have a young son who is visually impaired. One fine day after the wife gives a brief interview to a literary student, the son goes for a walk with his guide dog and returns to discover his father dead on the snow, having fallen from the top floor of the attic window. Was the husband killed or did he commit suicide? If he was killed, there are only two suspects: the wife and the son.

Anatomy of a Fall is a skilfully directed family mystery, in which director Triet’s focus is exclusively on the portrayal of the relationship between mother and son and in particular the role of the mother and the wife, in this case Sandra Voyter superbly played by German actress Sandra Huller (I am Your Man) who actually deserves an Oscar nomination for this role.

Huller’s multi-layered performance in English and French is phenomenal as the less than conventional German mother who finds herself the chief suspect in her French husband’s murder as the criminal trial begins her entire life, her relationship with her husband and their son is dissected in a courtroom in Grenoble, France.

Justine Triet’s portrayal of the husband Samuel is clever and unique, he is almost entirely off-screen except for a key flashback scene in the middle of the film in which the court is played back an audio recording of a marital spate between Samuel and Sandra about six months before his fatal fall.

At the beginning of Anatomy of a Fall, audiences have to watch the opening scene extremely carefully. Unlike in American or even British films, Justine Triet refuses to guide the audience through this complex trial to a satisfactory conclusion, instead she plays with the viewers sympathies as they continually shift between Sandra and her son Daniel, while Sandra is flirting with her French lawyer, the eloquent and sympathetic Vincent Renzi played by Swann Arlaud.

Anatomy of a Fall is a psychological film about a marriage that has collapsed and a family racked with guilt, infidelity and tragedy. Triet also asks the audience to question perspective.

Is an event better to be seen from a male or female point of view? Philosophically speaking who was really responsible for the man falling to his death? Was it the wife or her son? What about motive?

Despite the second half being too long, Anatomy of a Fall is a fascinating film about gender relationships, possible murder and complex marriages.

If audiences enjoy a riveting contemporary courtroom drama, then watch Anatomy of a Fall, for the multi-dimensional performance by Sandra Huller and the intriguing direction of Justine Triet. Anatomy of a Fall gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is an intelligent courtroom drama, which will challenge viewers and offer a fresh almost unsettling cinematic perspective.

I’m Your Man

Director: Maria Schrader

Cast: Maren Eggert, Dan Stevens, Sandra Huller, Hans Low, Jurgen Tarrach

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Running Time: 1 hour and 48 minutes

Language: German with English Subtitles

This film is being screened as part of the European Film Festival from 13th to the 23rd October 2022.

German actress Maren Eggert won Best Leading Performance at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival for her central role as Alma an anthropologist who indulges in a scientific experiment of taking on a humanoid or robotic man as her partner in director Maria Schrader’s fascinating comedy drama I’m Your Man starring the delectable British actor Dan Stevens (Beauty and the Beast, Blithe Spirit, The Man who invented Christmas) as the gorgeous looking rather robotic Tom, complete with startling blue eyes and a good physique.

In a rather strange opening sequence in which Alma is first introduced to Tom at a bizarre social event complete with jazzy music, martini’s, holograms and humanoids, she is not completely taken with the idea of spending time with a robot who is not essentially a pulsating, lustful man, complete with conflicting emotions like aggression, compassion and righteousness.

Director Maria Shrader’s fascinating narrative about the complex relationships between humans and artificial intelligence is intelligently explored in I’m Your Man as Alma eventually agrees to take the beautiful Tom home with her but she has limits about her companionship with this humanoid, not allowing him to share a bed and limiting his capacity for neatness, an algorithm in which he is programmed to provide happiness for the associated human.

When a long awaited Anthropological research paper about love and metaphors in ancient civilizations surrounding Persia is debunked by another author, Alma’s career stumbles and she decides to take Tom out of the city to meet her demented father and sister in the country. There is a stunning scene whereby Tom is wondering around the deer in the park, who are oblivious to any threat as he has no human odour as he is a robot.

On the sexual front, things are far more complex, as Alma discovers that while Tom is programmed to stimulate her, he cannot actually impregnate her. Alma’s initial revulsion to Tom is overcome when loneliness is replaced with curiosity and she does share a bed with Tom. Dan Stevens’s performance as the expressionless Tom is brilliant, creepy and pitch perfect, like the cipher of a man without any of the complexity or emotional nuance.

While Alma decides from an anthropological point of view that it is extremely unwise for humans to become attached to robotic companions, she herself falls into the same trap when she travels to Denmark to reignite a forgotten childhood memory. Director Maria Shrader’s I’m Your Man is a thought-provoking tale about companionship, love and the ethical complications of humans attaching themselves to artificial intelligence.

I’m Your Man gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is held together by two brilliant performances from Maren Eggert and Dan Stevens. Recommended viewing.