By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
If you haven’t seen M. Night Shyamalan’s two previous films — “Unbreakable” (2000) and “Split” (2017) — you may be a little lost in “Glass,” because this conclusion to his trilogy brings together the main characters from both films.
Ultra-strong David Dunn (Bruce Willis) believes he’s a superhero, utilizing his abilities as a crime-fighting vigilante, assisted by his loyal son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) with whom he runs a security company.
His arch-nemesis is brittle-boned Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), who calls himself “Mr. Glass” and uses his maniacally sinister intuition to manipulate the people around him.
Price’s current victim is troubled Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), who suffers from dissociative identity disorder, meaning that he has at least two dozen different personalities. The one who intrigues Price is “The Beast,” a serial killer.
When they’re caught by the police, they’re all confined in a Philadelphia psychiatric hospital, where Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) has developed a way to deprive these so-called “delusional” prisoners of their alleged superpowers. Or has she?
Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense,” “Signs”) is smitten with infusing sci-fi thrillers with pop psychology. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t.
Although the actors do their best, Shyamalan’s strident, humorless, idiosyncratic script is filled with exposition and far too complicated, and Mike Gioulakis’ cinematography is often more distracting than intriguing. Plus, there’s a troubling development with Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy), the sole survivor of The Beast’s attack in “Split,” before they all meet their ultimate fates.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Glass” is a contrived, absurdly fragmented 4, emerging as far too ambiguous to be satisfying.
With 10 Oscar nominations, Greek-born director Yorgos Lanthimos’ opulent costume drama “The Favourite” relates scandalous rumors about 18th century Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart monarchs, who reportedly indulged in lesbian liaisons with two of her closest sycophants.
After losing 17 children, portly, peevish, petulant Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) is no longer interested in ruling England or waging war with France. Instead, she’d rather eat sweets and play with her pet rabbits.
So scheming Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), makes pivotal political decisions with Prime Minister Godolphin (James Smith), until suddenly Sarah’s cherubic, yet shrewdly conniving cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) shows up at Kensington Palace, having fallen on hard times.
“Favour is a breeze that shifts direction all the time,” warns haughty, duplicitous Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford (Nicolas Hoult).
Playing complicated court games, ambitious Abigail learns to make herself indispensable to the volatile, yet vulnerable, gout-stricken Queen, as a spiky power-shift occurs.
Working from a decadent, diabolical script, Yorgos Lanthimos (“Dogtooth,” “The Lobster”) is an experimental filmmaker, specializing in coyly controversial amorality and acidic, deadpan delivery.
In this naughty, nasty showcase, the three leading ladies outdo themselves in vulgarity. Olivia Colman is best known for British TV’s “Broadchurch” and as the aging Queen Elizabeth II in the upcoming season of Netflix’s “The Crown.” Emma Stone, Oscar-winner for “La La Land,” adroitly adopts a British accent. And Rachel Weisz epitomizes her cool contention: “Sometimes, a lady likes to have fun.”
After three weeks of rehearsals, filming took place at England’s Hatfield House and Hampton Court, incorporating Fiona Crombie’s lavish production design, Sandy Powell’s elegant costumes and Robbie Ryan’s sweeping cinematography, evoking memories of Stanley Kubrick’s sumptuous “Barry Lyndon.”
On the Granger Gauge, “The Favourite” is a sensual, yet nasty, sardonic 6, a bizarre historical farce.
In “Vice,” writer/director Adam McKay has crafted a devastating portrait of Dick Cheney, opening with TV footage of the then-vice president’s autocratic assumption of White House power as Manhattan’s twin towers burned on 9/11.
What’s most remarkable is how a 40-pound weight gain and makeup/prosthetics transform shape-shifting Christian Bale into venomous Cheney, enabling him to deliver an immersive, powerhouse performance.
Propelled by his shrewd wife Lynne (Amy Adams), the narrative traces Cheney’s bureaucratic rise during the Nixon administration from scheming aide to conservative Republican Congressman Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell) to most trusted confidante of George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell).
Plus there’s Cheney’s unshakable love and support for his openly lesbian daughter Mary (Alison Pill), a same-sex marriage advocate.
Note the memorable end-credits scene of a (fictional) focus group, epitomizing the widening American cultural divide that took root during the tenure of this sneering, shadowy man with an uncanny ability, as the narrator (Jesse Plemons) notes, “to make wild and extreme ideas sound reasonable.”
“Dick Cheney was the safecracker, the professional you brought in who knew all the ins and outs of our government. He was the ultimate gamesman,” McKay told the Hollywood Reporter. “With Donald Trump the front door to the White House is wide open. There’s deer and dogs and hyenas running around. And this guy is like an orangutan just throwing #### around. But Cheney was the grandmaster who finished the deal.”
Unfortunately, this political black comedy’s zany tone and fragmentary structure falters, quickly leading to tedium. Adam McKay, former SNL writer-turned-filmmaker, overdoes the absurdist element, like staging a Machiavellian/Shakespearean soliloquy in the Cheney bedroom.
But 2019 could be the year that versatile Christian Bale, who previously won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in “The Fighter,” wins Best Actor — thanks to make up designer Greg Cannom, who used every trick in the book.
On the Granger Gauge, “Vice” is a searing, surreal 6, emerging as an incendiary, yet insubstantial satire that garnered eight Academy Award nominations.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
