THE ROVER
Cast: Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson, Scoot McNairy, Tawanda Manyimo, David Field, Gillian Jones, Susan Prior
Directed by David Michôd
102 mins
A guy walks into a bar – but unlike that stock first sentence of a thousand jokes, this one isn’t funny – as a gamut of graphic grimness flows on from that initial scene. The guy in question is Eric (Pearce) and his character’s protracted and blood-spattered chase begins through the dry barren Australian outback to retrieve his car, which was stolen while he was inside the bar having a drink.
In an opening dateline, we’re informed that the setting is “ten years after the collapse.” The obvious deduction is that the collapse has made the Oz outback dustier, more desolate and fly-ridden, and that it must have something to do with global economics, since the preferred currency for transactions at the scraggy and infrequently appearing trading posts is American dollars. Eric is quite the taciturn individual, prone to silence when his gun does the talking. Quite why he is so adamant about the return of his badly beaten-up scrap of a car isn’t revealed until the film’s conclusion.
The auto-thieves (McNairy, Manyimo, and Field) nicked his vehicle, leaving behind their still operational set of wheels, which had been beached by a road impediment. Eric gets theirs unstuck and gives chase, but even though it appears he received the better end of this exchange, Eric stops at nothing to retrieve his own trusty car.
While gun-shopping at a surreal outpost, Eric discovers Rey (Pattinson), a badly injured cohort of the sedan opportunists who left him behind for dead. Rey, the brother of one of the thieves, is a dim but cantankerous soul, who provides a stark contrast to Eric’s gruff brutality. What The Rover lacks in narrative, it makes up for with compelling tension, mystery, and acting finesse. Pearce again proves to be one of the great shape-shifters among the current galaxy of film actors. Pattinson finally rids himself of the mindless heartthrob status accorded him by the Twilight trilogy, and here fully demonstrates his acting chops – even though the film’s massive bloodshed may deter many of Pattinson’s young swooning female fans.
The cinematography by Natasha Braier brilliantly captures a crushing sense of the landscape’s vast, post-apocalytic emptiness. Writer/director Michôd (the screenplay is co-written with Joel Edgerton, based on Edgerton’s story idea) offers twisted and violent family relationships and stunning performances.
With fewer narrative underpinnings than most road pictures, The Rover adds more crazed bloodshed into the mix, and despite not breaking any new cinematic ground it certainly succeeds as a taut spellbinder.
What If
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver, Rafe Spall
Directed By Michael Douse
1hr 37m
Directed By Michael Douse
1hr 37m
Daniel Radcliffe continues to explore all the possible acting options open to him in a post-Harry Potter world. In What If, he plays Wallace, a medical school drop-out who’s just re-entering the social scene after a traumatic split with his girlfriend. Almost immediately, he meets Chantry (Zoe Kazan), who works for an animation studio and - unfortunately for Wallace - lives with her hot-shot UN economic negotiator boyfriend Ben (Rafe Spall). Since his own relationship was wrecked by his ex’s infidelity, Wallace must face the question himself: can he settle for simply being friends with Chantry or will he make his move as a potential love rival? Radcliffe and Kazan have a gentle and natural chemistry – and there are strong sexual sparks too, and the pair have a light, easy banter with the rapid-fire dialogue supplied by screenwriter Elan Mastai. Even if most of what they say doesn’t resemble how people talk in the real world, both actors still give it all they’ve got.
Directed by Michael Dowse, What If wants - almost desperately at times - to be a smarter, hipper modern rom-com (it was originally titled 'The F Word'– as in The ‘Friends’ Word – not what you're thinking). The problem is that whenever the film starts to address the issues its narrative revolves around, such as the boundaries of seemingly platonic male/female relationships, it withdraws and resorts to cheap jokes (mainly from the mouth of Adam Driver as Wallace’s hedonistic friend Allan). There’s a twee sensibility to What If that grows increasingly more irritating as the film goes on, especially since it does its best at first to mostly dodge the plot twists that one might normally encounter in a film of this sort.
In the last third of the film, it takes a sharp turn into the ridiculous, and fully embraces the conventions of its genre. As is always the case in USA flicks – people find personal financial difficulties to be of absolutely no hindrance or consequence whatsoever, as they just scoot off across the world on a whim - as does Wallace when he blithely hops on and off planes to fly from the main setting of Toronto to Dublin and straight back again in the same day, with barely a backward glance or even a remote sign of jet lag. Another slice of nonsense is when one crucial exchange rings completely false because it involves two characters not listening to each other for the first time since we’ve met them. The story wraps up in a glib, facile manner that’s almost insulting because it just does away with any moral quandries that the characters may have faced along the way.
Despite the script’s slide into mediocrity, however, What If does have its pleasures, and the biggest is its leading man. Radcliffe fully embodies Wallace and pulls off the neat trick of making him angst-ridden without being narcissistic or self-pitying - a tough assignment in a role which could easily slide into tedious whining. But Radcliffe never lets that happen and you’re always rooting for Wallace even when the script lets him off too easily. The actor has been aggressively pursuing a diverse roster of roles since graduating from Hogwarts, and as Wallace this is the latest outing to prove that Radcliffe does have the craftsmanship and talent to effectively make that tricky transition into an adult career. The film although charming and funny, is also too insubstantial to leave much of an impression – unlike its leading man, who won’t be asking “What if?” about his own career if his performance here is any indication.
