Well, the acting's good.
What you wanted more? Well, okay then. I missed the first five minutes of the film (bloody buses), but to be honest I doubt it would have helped, as it definateley seemed to be something that was a question of discovering stuff through the viewpoint of the lead male, Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich). It starts decently enough with Ethan meeting Lena (Alice Englert), a social outcast from a deep south town who has recently come to town to live with her uncle (Jeremy Irons). They have a couple of encounters, and have obvious attraction, but there are weird goings on - when two of their classmates are tormenting Lena, all the windows in the room explode, when Ethan meets Uncle Macon he answers the question of what plans he has for his life with a depressing stream of typical small town life leading to suicide at 64, when Ethan & Lena touch a keepsake of Ethan's they get vision of the Civil War and Ethan wakes up at his home.
After all this Ethan confronts Lena and she gets a chance to EXPOSIT! She, and her family are "Casters" - they have innate magical power. Witches is the derogatory term used for them, in the same way you might use geek or jock. On their 16th birthday, a Caster will be claimed by either the dark or light side of... whatever, based on their true nature. They refer to normal humans as "Mortals" despite the fact that there is no indication that Casters have any longer lifespans than anyone else. There are a number of different varieties of Casters, including Seers and Sirens, and it all comes across as ridiculous.
Where it gets far worse is when we find out the Macon was claimed as a Dark Caster, but is working to be a Light Caster to support Lena. However, if Lena is claimed by the dark side, there's no way back for her because she female and...
Wait what?
Because she's a Woman, when she turns sixteen, her 'true nature' will determine wether she'll be good or evil, and there's no way that she can ever change. Ever.
The.
Fuck.
This was where I was done with the movie, but there was still an hour to go. The other elements of the plot are that there is an additional curse on the female line that means that falling for a mortal will doom them to the dark side no matter how good they are. There's also Lena's mother, who is disembodied for some unexplained reason and has taken over the body of a extremely religious mother (Emma Thompson), and wants to force Lena to the dark side so that she will conquer the world for her as she is going to be extremely powerful due to her 16th being on the winter solstice at the end of a long cycle; the fact that this southern town bans To Kill a Mockingbird but is perfectly racially integrated, the tiny amount given to some of the supporting family members ( Emmy Rossum's cousin Ridley is the only one who actually gets something loosely plot related, and that's because her character has been given the seductress subset of the
There is a small glimmer of positivity I can take is from the acting. Within their (deeply flawed) characters and script all of the main actors put in a decent performance - Emma Thompson's split between the bible bashing 'won't someone think of the children' Mrs Lincoln and the inhabiting, power crazed spirit of Sarafine was particularly entertaining. But as I noted above, the adults are all Oscar grade actors who can be seen doing their stuff in far better films, and I'm sure the teen generation will end up getting other roles where they can show off. As for this in particular, no. Just don't bother.
2/10
I don't think it was that bad. What you seem to have missed is that the black & white nature of female casters is the payoff for them being waaaay more powerful than their male counterparts. The implication here is not that women are evil. They simply have less choice in the way they use magic, they become completely good or completely evil, according to which they tended to in the first place. That so many of the female characters here are is because we're mostly dealing with Lena's family, and the deck is meant to be stacked against her being light.
ReplyDeleteAs for the illogic of Lena's mother being disembodied, that's doubtlessly a piece of world-building for the sequels, along with the exact reasons Lena's so important in whatever light/dark struggle is going on, and why there's a struggle anyway. Despite the early infodump, the later stages of the film were an excellent piece of information drip-feed that kept the audience guessing as to where the denouement was going to end up.
And as for the race thing - there is an undercurrent, a mere hint, that things aren't all hunky-dory in a couple of places. However, that's not the story being told here, and if the town's race relations were left as a subplot, it would be too weak to do American racial politics any justice. It was best just glossed over under the circumstances.
I did miss the power thing, but that doesn't mean that I don't like the sexism involved in the split between women and men involved, especially given the two full female casters fall into such terrible stereotypes (Emmy Rossum's temptress, Emma Thompson's abandon all for the quest for power) I shouldn't have said that Rossum's character was a representative of 'all women are evil', just that it squeezed into those archetypes. It's not that I think that the film is saying all women are Evil, it's saying that women have far less agency than men.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with world building for the sequels is that it has the potential of making things not make sense in the isolation of the single film. Especially since the dis embodiment could have been covered off with a quick line or two.