COME AWAY

 

Publicity poster for Come Away (© Brenda Chapman/Endurance Media/Fred Films/Yoruba Saxon Productions/Signature Entertainment/Relativity Media – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only).

The movie that I watched during the afternoon of 2 October 2022 promised so much, but, sadly, it failed to deliver for me.

Directed by Brenda Chapman (in her live-action directorial debut), and released in 2020 by Signature Entertainment (in the UK) and Relativity Media (in the USA), it was the fantasy(?) movie Come Away. In it, the classic children's stories of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie and Alice's Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll were not only reimagined but melded together.

This was achieved via the nothing if not original construct of having Peter and Alice as siblings (together with a slightly older brother, David, whose tragic demise sets the scene for much darkness and introspection), plus kindly if impoverished parents Jack and Rose Littleton, played by David Oyelowo (excellent) and Angelina Jolie (stick to Maleficent!).

Also on hand are a well-meaning yet ruthless aunt (Anna Chancellor), a deranged grandfather in hyperactive Mad Hatter mode (Clarke Peters), and not forgetting a couple of so brief as to be scarcely noticeable and entirely forgettable cameo performances by Michael Caine and Derek Jacobi. The children are all very imaginative, especially Peter (Jordan Anthony) whose derring-do alter ego pretend-character is of course a Peter Pan precursor, whereas Alice (Keira Chansa) reveals a particular liking for pretend tea parties with her white rabbit toy and others as attendees.

Their play fantasies are visualised beautifully on-screen, but that is all that they appear to be, fantasies, with a very real, grim mainstream plot taking centre-stage (one in which David's death leads to their father falling back into his earlier gambling ways and their mother resorting to alcohol to ease her pain) – until the final climactic scene, that is.

Then, out of nowhere, after tracking down their evil moneylender uncle Captain James aka CJ (David Gyasi) in his underground 19th-Century London lair after he'd had their father Jack maimed for failing to repay a gambling debt, Peter and a befriended gang of London street urchins called the Lost Boys, together with Captain James and his villainous henchmen, all abruptly transform – into Peter Pan and the Lost Boys battling Captain Hook and his pirate band aboard a galleon far far away!

As in the original Barrie novel, Peter wins, chopping off Captain James's/Hook's hand and throwing it to the very much alive crocodile who only moments earlier had been a very dead taxiderm specimen mounted on the wall of Captain James's subterranean London abode. Then off Peter and the Lost Boys fly through the sky on their galleon headed for Never Land!

Moreover, the movie ends with a secret visit to his former family home by Peter, leaving behind a pile of gold coins for his parents before disappearing back to Never Land without giving them the chance to see him.

In short, what had hitherto been a straightforward non-fiction plot, with fantasy scenes limited to expressions of the children's imagination, abruptly and inexplicably transforms into a wholesale fantasy – a transformation that makes no sense whatsoever. How can Peter's disappearance be explained in real terms, especially as his family seems entirely unconcerned by it? And if their wicked uncle, who'd maimed his own brother over a mere gambling debt, had really had his own hand chopped off by young Peter, I dread to think how violent his revenge on the family would have been. Yet, nothing, they all apparently lived happily ever after.

It's almost as if the ending from an entirely different, fantasy-based Peter Pan-themed film had accidentally been tagged onto this film, instead of its own expected non-fiction one. Bizarre.

Indeed, by making no sense whatsoever, this fatuous albeit visually spectacular finale spoilt the entire movie for me, albeit one that until then had at times proven rather too effective at tugging upon my emotions by reviving so many memories of my own long-gone happy childhood and loving family.

As for this movie's title, Come Away, it is taken from a famous poem by Irish writer W.B. Yeats, entitled 'Stolen Child' (click here for a suitably spellbinding musical setting of his words by Loreena McKennitt), which is all about a human child induced by fairies to come away with them to their enchanted land, leaving behind the human world forever. At the film's beginning and ending, an adult Alice (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is reading this poem to her children (who just so happen to be called Wendy, John, and Michael – the three children befriended by the title character in the original novel Peter Pan), but it has precious direct relevance to the movie's plot. True, Peter does ultimately abandon the real world and even his family for the enchanted realm of Never Land, but he does so entirely of his own free will, he is not lured away by supernatural entities, or anyone else for that matter.

All in all, Come Away is a decidedly unconnected, unconvincing, and ultimately unsatisfying movie as far as I'm concerned – except for the exquisitely-portrayed fantasy scenes, which are truly a beautiful sight to behold, however relevant or otherwise they each may be to the overall storyline.

If you'd like to catch a glimpse of what to expect, click here to watch an official Come Away trailer on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

THE PRESTIGE

 

Publicity poster for The Prestige (© Christopher Nolan/Touchstone Pictures/Warner Bros Pictures/Newmarket Films/Syncopy/Buena Vista Pictures Distribution – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My movie watch on 13 April 2022 was the fascinating sci fi/fantasy thriller The Prestige, one of the best films that I have viewed in a very long time, and truly magical in every sense of the word.

Directed, co-produced, and its screenplay co-written by Christopher Nolan, released internationally by Warner Bros in 2006, and based upon the 1995 titular Christopher Priest novel, The Prestige pits two early 20th-Century London-based stage magicians, Robert Angier (played by Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), against one another in an intense rivalry based upon increasingly obsessive one-upmanship, each desperate to outdo the other, whatever the cost.

Angier and Borden begin their careers as friends, working together in the same act, until Angier's wife Julia drowns on stage inside a water tank after being unable to untie the problematic type of knot that Borden has obstinately used on her, despite having been warned against it by their very experienced mentor John Cutter (Michael Caine). Angier blames Borden, and they become implacable enemies thereafter. Establishing their own separate, rival acts (Angier as The Great Danton, still working with Cutter; Borden as The Professor, working with the mysterious Bernard Falon), they ruthlessly sabotage and out-compete each other's tricks at every available opportunity, as a result of which Angier is partially crippled and Borden has a finger blown off.

Their deadly confrontations culminate (and fulminate!) with a visually sensational trick devised by Borden and called by him 'The Transported Man', in which he enters one wardrobe and then almost instantaneously steps out from inside another one placed at some distance away from the first. Angier is desperate to discover the secret to this extraordinary illusion, but Borden skillfully fools him into setting forth on a wild transatlantic goose chase to America, in order to visit none other than the contentious Serbo-American scientist Nikola Tesla (and played by none other than David Bowie, employing an intriguing Scottish accent!) at his laboratory in Colorado Springs. Here he is aided in his highly controversial, explosive experiments in electricity and magnetism by his loyal assistant Mr Alley (Andy Serkis).

However, Borden's cruel scheme unexpectedly backfires when Tesla creates for Angier a machine that will duplicate Borden's trick, and in an even more spectacular manner – but at a terrible cost, yet one that Angier is willing to pay in order to surpass Borden's act.

As a movie whose theme is sleight-of-hand stage magic, do not be surprised to learn that nothing in The Prestige is what it seems to be, most especially the true explanations for the two magicians' respective versions of 'The Transported Man'. Borden's involves a traditional but ingeniously-executed deception, whereas Angier's is something else entirely, as you'd expect from anything created by Tesla. Having said that, I've actually included a subtle clue as to the latter's incredible modus operandi here in this mini-review – did you spot it? And, if you need a clue for Borden's, thinking about anagrams is the name of the game…or the game of the name!

The Prestige is a superb, wonderfully entertaining movie, which kept me totally captivated throughout its 2-hr 10-minute running time. It includes excellent performances by all four of its leading cast members (Scarlett Johansson being the fourth, appearing as Olivia, a double-agent love interest between the two magicians), as well as some exciting special effects, especially within Tesla's classic 'mad scientist' laboratory, whose evocative design incorporates some dramatic steampunk visuals.

Josh Hartnett was apparently considered for the role of Angier, but Jackman's powerful rendition of this embittered character, driven half-crazy by his wife's needless death at the hands of Borden and hell-bent upon avenging her, is absolutely perfect, as poignant as it is chilling, especially when the twin voices of conscience and reason beseeching him inside his head become increasingly stilled as his mania escalates swiftly and surely towards its inevitable, catastrophic conclusion.

Adhering to the sacred traditions of stage magic, I'll say no more, but the closing scenes, when all is finally revealed, are as visually breathtaking as they are shocking – their stark, unforgettable images exposing the horrific depths to which the rivals have sunk in order to achieve each other's total destruction, yet little realising how this will impact upon their own survival. Or, to put it another way: what goes around, comes around.

Last but certainly not least: if you don't already know what a prestige is in the particular context of prestidigitation ('prestige' deriving from 'praestigium', the Latin word for 'trick'), you need to watch this movie – all will be revealed, or will it? But if you can't wait that long, here is Cutter's own explanation of it:

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige".

If you'd like to conjure forth a tantalizing glimpse of the spellbinding sights and incongruous illusions that await you in The Prestige, be sure to click here to view an official trailer for this dark, twisted, yet mesmerizingly macabre, magical film on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.