“How I Met Your Mother’s” Josh Radnor stars in the first full-scale PBS-produced miniseries in a long time, “Mercy Street,” the story of a Civil War hospital in Union-occupied Alexandria, Virginia.
As always happens in wartime, when there are vast numbers of injuries affecting young, healthy patients, there were enormous advances in medicine during the Civil War. In this hospital, there are nurses from both sides of the conflict, along with a black laborer (McKinley Belcher III) who is more knowledgeable about medical treatment than some of the staff, and a newly freed woman (L. Scott Caldwell).
Rated R for strong frontier combat and violence including gory images, a sexual assault, language and brief nudity
Profanity:
Some strong and racist language
Alcohol/ Drugs:
Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:
Intense, graphic, and disturbing violence including arrows, knives, guns, sexual assault and prolonged animal attack
Diversity Issues:
A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:
January 8, 2016
Date Released to DVD:
April 18, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:
B01AB0DX2K
Copyright 20th Century Fox 2015
In the 1820’s, ladies of fashion liked fur trim. And, true then as now, men like money. So frontiersmen went on trapping expeditions into the wilderness of the young country of the United States of America (played here by British Columbia and Alberta, Canada). The rewards for bringing back fur pelts are significant. The risks, including attack by the Arikara Indians, are dire.
A frontiersman named Hugh Glass was the guide for one of these expeditions. According to lore, he was savagely attacked by a bear and left to die by his companions, but survived and made it back over 250 miles to the nearest fort, intent on revenge. The story has been told — and embroidered and adapted — over the years, reflecting each era’s perspective and concerns. This version is based on the novel by US Trade Michael Punke (who, as Deputy US Trade representative and Ambassador to the World Trade Organization is restricted from promoting the film). As co-written and directed by “Birdman’s” Alejandro González Iñárritu it is a story of resolve. As often with Westerns, it is a way to explore the fundamental contradictions of the American spirit: determination, vision, courage, but sometimes without any regard for the damage they can cause.
Both Iñárritu and his Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki won Oscars for this film. They filmed only in available light, meaning they had to limit themselves to just moments of filming each day. As the director told Deadline, they created “little-by-little jewel moments; that’s the way I designed the production…But those locations are so gorgeous and so powerful, they look like they have never been touched by a human being, and that’s what I needed.” They filmed under conditions so arduous that Will Poulter, who plays real-life frontiersman/trapper Jim Bridger, told me that no acting was necessary to show that they were freezing and exhausted. The bear is CGI (and the bear attack is truly horrifying), but almost everything else was really there and really happening, including diCaprio’s hacking coughs (he had the flu).
The cinematography is the most stunning I have ever seen, perfectly focussed throughout the depth of field, even across endless vistas. Second only to the visuals is the movie’s real theme, not revenge or even will, but law.
When there is no structure, no church, no police, courts, or jail, no lawmakers, no appeals, how do you decide who is in charge and what to do? The film’s most fascinating moments are the ones where we see characters across the continuum on those questions, with one in particular who is still deciding where he fits in, decide what they should do, what they must do. In an early scene, the Indians attack and the frontiersmen’s response is: pelts payload first, and every man for himself second. Wounded men are left behind without a second’s hesitation.
But when Glass (Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio) is critically wounded in the middle of nowhere, Captain Henry, the leader of the expedition (Domhnall Gleeson) is certain what he is owed. Because he has been an essential and honorable part of their expedition (and, unstated but evident, because no one is shooting arrows at them at the moment), he decides two men will be left behind to care for him until he dies and then give him some semblance of a Christian burial. They are John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and Bridger (17 years old at the time). Glass has a teenage son (Forrest Goodluck), from his marriage to a Native American woman who was killed, and he stays with his father as well.
But Fitzgerald becomes impatient and commits a terrible act of cruelty while Bridger is away from the campsite, then lies to him about what happened. Glass is left for dead. As Glass, Fitzgerald, Henry, and Bridger deal with the consequences of these actions, we see the beginnings of a society and culture. Some day, the pristine landscapes explored by Glass and Bridger would be covered with roads and cities and we will try to re-create them by filming in other countries to show us what we were. But the story of the struggle for justice, always the great work of this country, is a story we will keep telling forever.
Parents should know that this film includes extremely graphic and disturbing human and animal violence with many explicit and disturbing images of dead bodies and wounds, murder of family members, sexual assault, brief nudity, some strong language, and racism.
Family discussion: How many different views about law and morality do you see among the characters? What should the group have done with a severely injured member?
If you like this, try: “Touching the Void,” a documentary about an extraordinary story of survival in the wilderness
The fantasy of royalty mingling among the commoners goes back as far as royalty itself, turning up in classic stories from the Arabian nights to Mark Twain’s Prince and The Pauper to Audrey Hepburn’s Oscar-winning Roman Holiday, and in civilian form, the many runaway heiress films like It Happened One Night. An urban myth that Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, Princess Margaret celebrated VE Day, the end of the WWII battles in Europe and the surrender of the Nazi forces, by mingling with the crowd, has been turned into a fantasy that the then-teenage princesses had a wild night out on the town. It’s sort of Cinderella in reverse.
King George (played by Rupert Everett and yes, the one from The King’s Speech) and his wife, also called Elizabeth (Emily Watson) are preparing for various ceremonies to recognize the end of the war, including a speech the King is to give on the radio just before the official end of hostilities at midnight. His daughters are the future queen Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon, with an endearing freshness and just a hint of steel), called Lilibet by her family, and the fun-loving Margaret (Bel Powley of “Diary of a Teenage Girl”). Although their father relies on them to be with him when he speaks on the radio, still a very difficult challenge for the man whose stutter was the theme of “The King’s Speech,” they persuade their parents to let them out just once, so they can mingle among the “ordinary people.” Elizabeth has never made a pot of tea, visited a public ladies’ room, or had a drink in a pub, all of which she will get to experience. She has never been spoken to in a familiar manner, and had to be reminded to remove her tiara by a footman who suggests it might rather give her away.
The king and queen think they have outsmarted their daughters by assigning them a military escort and arranging that their outing will be confined to a closed room with carefully selected guests. But the girls escape and are quickly separated. Margaret spends the rest of the night going from one wildly improbable situation to another (including a brothel) while Lilibet searches for her with the help of an RAF airman named Jack (the very appealing Jack Reynor from “Sing Street”), who does not think much of the military or posh people.
Even the most Masterpiece-loving American Anglophiles will find this story lightweight and inside, with some of the accents hard to parse and some of the references obscure. But Gadon, especially in the last half of the movie, is lovely as the girl who grows to enjoy being called Lizzie, and it is satisfying to see her interest in learning about the people who will be her subjects and growing into her power as a woman and a monarch.
Parents should know that this film has drinking, some drug use, some scuffles and fights, sexual references and situations (including prostitutes and a threesome), references to wartime casualties, and some strong language.
Family discussion: If you were a prince or princess, what would you most want to see and experience? Why didn’t Jack want the help of the royal family?
Rated PG-13 for some intense violence, thematic elements, brief strong language and partial nudity
Profanity:
Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:
Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:
Some intense violence including bombs, police brutality, domestic violence, and sexual abuse, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:
A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:
October 30, 2015
Date Released to DVD:
February 1, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:
B017Y01GOM
Copyright 2015 Focus Features
How do you persuade politicians to give you the vote when you do not have the capacity to vote them out if they deny it? That was the problem faced by women in later 19th and early 20th century Great Britain and the US. While Abigail Adams urged her husband to “remember the ladies” in setting up the US government, the Constitution did not give them the right to vote. Nor did the 15th amendment to the Constitution adopted after the Civil War to give the vote to all men, regardless of race. Efforts to give “universal suffrage” in the UK led to reforms over the 19th century, but none of them granted any voting rights to women.
As this film begins, women in the UK had been fighting for the right to vote for 30 years. They concluded that they had exhausted all peaceful means of sending their message and were resorting to what today we might consider terrorism, throwing rocks at store windows and planting bombs in mailboxes. They were careful to destroy property only. No one was hurt through their protests, except for the protesters themselves, who were subjected to extreme brutality from the police, including torturous forced feeding for those who participated in hunger strikes when they were imprisoned.
Those who have studied the history of women’s suffrage may be familiar with the names of the leaders, like Emmeline Pankhurst (played in this film by Meryl Streep). But as so often happens with history, the stories of the everyday women who played a vital role in the movement are not well known, and this film wisely focuses on them. Pankhurst is on screen for less than ten minutes. The movie’s main character is a composite who is representative of the working women who became a part of the cause. Maud (Carey Mulligan) works in a laundry as does her husband (Ben Wishaw) and as did her mother, until she was killed in an industrial accident. She began working there as a child and will work there as long as she can, though she knows that the likelihood of injury or illness caused by the working conditions is very high. That is not the only problem. As her friend’s young daughter comes to work in the laundry, we can see from Maud’s reaction to the sexual assaults by a predatory boss are something she recognizes from her own experience.
Maud is in the wrong place at the wrong time and is assumed to be working with the protesters. Instead of denying it or, when she has the opportunity to help her situation by spying on them and reporting what she learns back to the police, she begins to think for the first time that there could be a chance to create a better life for herself and for the next generation, and she becomes involved, though she risks losing her job, her husband, and her child.
The movie, written by Abi Morgan and directed by Sarah Gavron, is somber in tone but it is effective at showing the harsh conditions of Maud’s life and the always-watchable Mulligan gives her character a developing ferocity that is more of a surprise to her than it is to us. It also is effective at showing us the class divisions and how women across class lines worked together. But 21st century audiences well-versed in the narratives of later protests like the civil rights, women’s equality, environmental and and anti-war movements may find it difficult to sympathize with the literally incendiary tactics of these women. There are so many characters in a very limited time period with very little progress that its good intentions are not enough to make it a strong narrative.
Text at the end of the film provides sobering statistics about how long it has taken — and is still taking — for women to get the right to vote. Here’s hoping it will not take explosives for these women to have a say in the laws that govern them.
Parents should know that this film features protest violence including destruction of property and explosives by activists and police brutality by law enforcement. Characters are injured and killed and there is domestic violence, sexual abuse, a parent permanently separated from a child, brief strong language, and non-sexual nudity.
Family discussion: If you were advising the activists on behalf of women’s right to vote, what would you suggest? How did later political movements learn from their example?
If you like this, try: the documentaries “One Woman, One Vote” and “Not For Ourselves Alone“
Rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images
Profanity:
A few bad words
Alcohol/ Drugs:
Drinking, fantasy drugs
Violence/ Scariness:
Extensive fantasy-style violence with many disturbing and grisly images
Diversity Issues:
None
Date Released to Theaters:
October 23, 2015
Copyright Summit Entertainment 2015
A witch would have to cast a spell over me to make me sit through this big, dumb, dull, dud again.
And that’s too bad, because I like Vin Diesel and I can easily be put in the mood for a good-stupid sword and sorcery epic. But not this one, which has a storyline we’ve seen before and dialog that sounds like it was written by people for whom English was not a first language, and probably not a second. It’s like a videogame, and not in a good way.
Diesel plays Kaulder, and we meet him 800 years ago, with long hair and a beard, he is part of a group determined to wipe out the witches who are responsible for the plague that has killed off many of their families, including Kaulder’s wife and daughter. “In her death lies our salvation.” “Let fear perish.” “You must go. You have to fight.” Not very memorable. Oh, let’s be real — it does not even qualify as dialog. It’s just talking.
With torches for light and swords, arrows, and axes for protection, they enter the witch’s cave. Things do not go very well and most of them are killed. Kaulder battles the witch, and as she dies, she curses him to live forever. We catch up with him in the present day, back to being the bald Vin Diesel we all know and love. He’s on an airplane being tossed around the sky by a fierce storm. He realizes that it is not only caused by magic but caused by someone who does not know she is causing it. A young witch with a backpack has carelessly tossed together ancient runes that should never be allowed to touch. (Kids!) “At least you didn’t get them wet,” he says, and we know that (1) the screenwriters have seen “Gremlins,” and (2) they’ll be wet before the end of the movie and the CGI folks will have a heck of a storm to kick up then.
The “Gremlin’s” idea is followed by a few borrowed from “Harry Potter,” “CSI,” and various other vastly superior sources, with some highly predictable twists and a sprinkling of semi-contemporary references. Well, the iPad reference is semi-contemporary. The use of the term “stewardess” and the assumption that they are all super-hot and excellent one-night-stand prospects is rather outmoded.
There are some pretty good special effects and some moderately good stunts, but Michael Caine is wasted as Kaulder’s human aide (about to retire, with Elijah Wood, also wasted, as his replacement). Rose Leslie has some nice moments as a young witch trying to make her way in New York, like she wandered off the set of “Girls.” Ultimately, the remixing of better (and just as bad) films becomes grating and by the time they set it up for a sequel, it is the audience is beginning to cursed for living long enough to sit through this film.
Translation: Sword and sorcery-style fantasy violence with some grisly and disturbing images including dead bodies, a few bad words and brief sexual references.
Family discussion: What would be the best and worst parts about living for 800 years? Why was it so hard for Kaulder to trust anyone?
If you like this, try: “Hansel and Gretel” and “Dragonslayer”
to Audrey Hepburn’s Oscar-winning 
. An urban myth that Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, Princess Margaret celebrated VE Day, the end of the WWII battles in Europe and the surrender of the Nazi forces, by mingling with the crowd, has been turned into a fantasy that the then-teenage princesses had a wild night out on the town. It’s sort of Cinderella in reverse.
) and his wife, also called Elizabeth (Emily Watson) are preparing for various ceremonies to recognize the end of the war, including a speech the King is to give on the radio just before the official end of hostilities at midnight. His daughters are the future queen Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon, with an endearing freshness and just a hint of steel), called Lilibet by her family, and the fun-loving Margaret (Bel Powley of “Diary of a Teenage Girl”). Although their father relies on them to be with him when he speaks on the radio, still a very difficult challenge for the man whose stutter was the theme of “The King’s Speech,” they persuade their parents to let them out just once, so they can mingle among the “ordinary people.” Elizabeth has never made a pot of tea, visited a public ladies’ room, or had a drink in a pub, all of which she will get to experience. She has never been spoken to in a familiar manner, and had to be reminded to remove her tiara by a footman who suggests it might rather give her away.
