December Drama: Empire of Light, Bones and All, Pinocchio, Avatar: The Way of Water

December is proving to be a real grab bag of a month in terms of cinematic offerings. So strap right in for the following reviews about movies that feature drama, animation, fantasy, and some light cannibalism.

Empire of Light: I do not think this movie is objectively good, but my God it felt like it was engineered in a lab just for me. Set in 1980s England, it stars Olivia Colman (I'm already sold!), as Hilary, the duty manager at the Empire Cinema. We vaguely know that she has recently returned from hospitalization for a mental health condition, and she initially seems to be a rather quiet and lonely woman, diligently going about her day, but not getting much enjoyment out of anything. She is having an affair with her boss, played by Colin Firth (I am sold again!), but when a new young employee named Stephen (Michael Ward) is hired, sparks unexpectedly fly. 

This is a movie about a frustrated middle-aged woman with serious mental health issues and a young Black man dealing with how Thatcher's Britain has empowered all manner of right-wing nationalists. They have an unexpected connection, but the societal forces around them and their own internal struggles constantly get in their way. But the setting of this love story is this movie theater, this decrepit, but once glorious palace that lets everyone escape for a few hours in their lives. Toby Jones plays the cinema's projectionist, and the scene where he teaches Stephen how to change the reels is magical. And then of course, there's the scene where Colman sits in a theatre by herself getting a private screening of Being There. I could watch that woman's face all day because that is the look on my face every time I am at the movies. At the end of the day, this is a movie about how life is hard, but at least we can always go to the cinema for a pick-me-up. Inject that message directly into my veins.

Pinocchio: I don’t know how 2022 became the Year of Pinocchio, but I’m over it. After the disastrous live action movie starring Tom Hanks, I was wary of going into this animated take co-directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson, from a script co-written by del Toro and Patrick McHale. It has gotten a lot of acclaim for the animation, so sure, go ahead and watch this movie because it is very pretty to look at. And Jiminy Cricket voiced by Ewan McGregor is a treat. But it‘s still the same damn story and I’m afraid my patience has been sorely tested by it this year.

The main update is that instead of the whole insane donkey and carnival sequence, we instead get a frightening look at “what if Pinocchio was drafted into a young fascist group, designed to help Mussolini create an army of Italian boys to defend the fatherland?” I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of war for this year, and could not be compelled to care. Again, people do seem to like this movie, so I fully acknowledge I didn’t watch it in the best frame of mind. If you are not burnt out on Pinocchio adaptations or have a true love of animation and del Toro’s storytelling, this could be the absolute perfect movie for you. But for me, at this point in 2022? No thanks.

Avatar: The Way of Water: Welp, this movie was exactly what I expected it to be. Visually spectacular, bloated, and ridiculous. It's probably going to make a bazillion dollars and I will have to watch the sequels for many years to come, but oh God I'm not pleased about it. The script is so cliched that there were multiple times the audience just laughed out loud at the silliness of a scene or a particular line of dialogue. Nothing happens in this movie that you can't predict, but of course the CGI is stunning. I watched it in IMAX 3D and it is mesmerizing and colorful and gorgeous, but did I need three hours of this? No. 

The movie picks back up on the alien plant of Pandora where the indigenous Na'vi people are yet again being threatened by colonizing humans. This time, they specifically want to kill Jake Scully (Sam Worthington) the human who decided to stay in his Na'vi avatar form and fell in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) in the first movie. Now they have children, both biological and adopted, and we will watch them flee from the humans to a new clan of Na'vi called the Metkayina who have a bond with the sea. Here, they will learn the way of water, how to dive and form symbiotic relationships with marine animals, and then proceed to have innumerable battles with the evil, grasping humans. If you like water and fighting, you'll have a grand time. I like water, but I certainly don't like extended fight sequences, so my patience wore thin by the halfway mark. Overall, this movie is self-indulgent and mediocre, and while I'm glad that James Cameron has perfected this motion capture technology, it's time for us to put it to good use in movies that have truly interesting stories to tell.

Bones and All: Here’s my one-sentence review of this film: I was expecting it to be more of a romance but it is heavy on the cannibalism. Directed by Luca Guadagnino from a screenplay by David Kajganich that is an adaptation of Camille DeAngelis' novel, this is the story of Maren (Taylor Russell), a young woman who is a cannibal, who is abandoned by her father (Andre Holland) after he realizes he can no longer protect her. She decides to look for her mother, who is presumably a cannibal herself, and on the subsequent road trip, she runs into Lee (Timothy Chalamet), a fellow “Eater,” and they fall in love, as they finally feel like they’ve found a kindred spirit. Along the way they run into other cannibals (there are weirdly way more than you would think), and those encounters either propel the plot forward or further add to the questions of the ethics and morality of cannibalism and the “rules” each individual abides by to feel like they are living their life the right way.

This movie creeped me the hell out and when I got home, I was exceedingly glad my dinner was meat-free. I’m not sure who the ideal audience is for this film - if you like romance, this movie has too much horror, but if you like horror, this movie has too much romance. It’s a real Catch-22. I found myself counting the minutes until it would be over because it would periodically drag and then suddenly get too gory. I can certainly give the director kudos for coming up with such a bizarre tone and filming it with such cinematic relish. And the cast is fantastic, with the supporting cast including brilliantly unnerving performances from people like Mark Rylance and Michael Stuhlbarg. But oh boy. I certainly did not eat this up with a spoon.