July 2019 film review

CRAZY RICH ASIANS (2018) D- John Chu
A perky New Yorker travels to Singapore to meet her BF Nick, not realizing till she gets there that he’s actually the scion of one of the richest (and most snobbish) families in Singapore. She’s an accomplished academic, but that doesn’t cut much ice with these guys. What they admire is money and the courage to spend it big. Chief among her critics is Eleanor, Nick’s mum (played by the only class act in the film, Michelle Yeoh), who doesn't think she’s got the right stuff and isn’t backward about coming forward in telling her so. Much complication ensues, with these and other related billionaires until, like some far-eastern fairy tale, it all comes right in the end.
          I’d say more, but I’m feeling a bit nauseous. Despite the film’s popularity (it cost $30 million and made nearly $300 million) I became annoyed early and it got worse. Sure, it looks good, full of gaudy colours and evidence of extravagant wealth, but, sorry, I found it a thin, vapid exercise in wealth-envy. However, as I say, I am clearly in the minority.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1984) D- John Hughes
A crew of high school kids are stuck in detention on a Saturday when they’d really rather be out having their adolescent fun. Well, they shouldn’t have been naughty, should they? It’s a mixed bag, the cool kid, the Goth, the geeky one, the misfit girl. Etcetera. The film is bravely shot almost entirely in this one classroom, the miscreants presided over by a teacher (Paul Gleason) who is in a kind of detention himself, as he has to stay there all day too.
          What follows is an essay in adolescent alienation as one pupil after another describes their life, in engaging, and sometimes heartbreaking detail.
          This film marked the debut of a number of stars who came to be known collectively as the ‘Brat Pack’, including Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy. John Hughes, who wrote as well as directed the film, struck gold. Costing barely $1 million dollars to make, it grossed more than $50 million, ensuring his place as a Hollywood Player. I for one say he deserved it.

PRETTY IN PINK (1986) D- Howard Deutsch
A somewhat socially outcast Milly Ringwald finds herself dating a boy from the right side of the tracks, but soon finds trans-class relationships are not without their problems... Fortunately she has one true anchor in her life - her dad (Harry Dean Stanton, perfect as always), who is always there for her, no matter what.
         Written by John Hughes (see above), apparently in just 2 days, this was perhaps the high-water mark of the Brat Pack era, and like The Breakfast Club, featured excellent writing and some fine acting from its young stars. Some of them, like James Spader went on to even greater things; others, such as Molly Ringwald seemed almost to disappear from the screen altogether. Strange how that happens...

I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING! (1945) P/D- Powell and Pressburger
A feisty young woman travels from London to the outer Hebrides to marry her (much older) millionaire fiancée, who has rented an island for the occasion. But inclement weather prevents her from making the last leg of the journey and she finds herself stranded in a highland village until the wind drops. And there she meets Roger Livesy, the local laird, who despite all the land he owns (including the island in question) is, like everyone else in the village, little richer than a church mouse. There’s a key moment in the film when he says of one of his friends:
“She isn’t poor, she just doesn’t have any money.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Oh no, not at all.”
Our gold digger doesn’t get this at all, or at least she has to go through a number of formative and quite scary experiences before she does.
          A lot of people hold this film in very high regard. Martin Scorsese, for example, rates this among the ten best films he’s ever seen, and it is true that there is something very special about the atmosphere it creates, despite its low budget and limited material. I think it’s called cinematic magic, and in this film Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger takes that to its very highest level. Wonderful.