DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

July 26, 2024

deadpool & wolverine, emma corrin, hugh jackman, ryan reynolds, shawn levy, hollywood authentic

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds have been playing social media frenemies since their characters met in 2009’s X-Men Origins so it was only ever a matter of time before the duo did their faux sniping and trash-talking on the big screen. Obviously, since X-Men, Deadpool and Wolverine have been through the wringer, both narratively and corporately – with the ‘Merc With The Mouth’ staging a rebirth driven by Reynolds and Wolverine popping his clogs in James Mangold’s elegant send-off Logan in 2017. Now, Deadpool’s shepherd, Reynolds, is going to assume audiences rocking up for a third instalment of R-rated humour and violence will be up to speed in Disney’s takeover of Fox, comic book lore and the personal lives of its stars – ‘I’m telling Blake’ he says of his real-life wife, and makes cracks about Jackman’s divorce. Like Deadpool himself, this mash-up is fast, loose and takes no prisoners.

deadpool & wolverine, emma corrin, hugh jackman, ryan reynolds, shawn levy, hollywood authentic
© 2024 20th Century Studios / © and 2024 MARVEL. Jay Maidment

So where do we find Wade Wilson this time around? In a pre-title sequence that sets the tone, Deadpool is digging up Wolverine’s grave, breaking the fourth wall and swearing up a storm when he only finds his adamantium skeleton. This soon leads to bloody hell and an explanation; in an exposition-heavy flashback (which Deadpool naturally acknowledges) we discover that the TVA (seen most prominently in the Loki TV series) are messing with timelines again, forcing Deadpool to try to set the universe right by hopping the multiverse and interacting with variants in each dimension. That means multiple versions of Wolverine (all grumpy and soused), Deadpool (Dogpool, Lady Deadpool and more) and alt-universe superheroes cameoed by famous faces. At the heart of the matter is the timeline junkyard, ‘the void’, presided over by Emma Corrin’s Cassandra Nova – a baddie with links to Charles Xavier, the ability to stick fingers into brains and a kick-ass wardrobe. Unwillingly, Wolverine must accompany Deadpool on a journey that takes in forgotten superheroes, self sacrifice, ironic needledrops, slo-mo team-ups and a lot of dick jokes to find peace. 

Though the uninitiated might struggle to get every in-joke zinger and easter egg, Marvel fans will enjoy the ride, perhaps obeying Deadpool when he instructs them to use their ‘special sock’ for some of the frenetic action set pieces. No spoilers, but the cameos are genuinely thrilling callbacks, a fight in a minivan is a cracker (complete with a Greatest Showman hat-tip), Matthew Macfadyen is Tom Wambsgan-witheringly excellent as a TVA suit, the chemistry between Reynolds and Jackman genuinely heartwarming and the end credits BTS and EPK footage a true nostalgia hit. And though there’s numerous digs about Jackman coming out of Wolvie-retirement, the gravitas and soul he brings to proceedings is the true heart of the piece and warrants the grave robbing. (Of course, any tear in the eye is dissipated by Deadpool criticising an oiled up, topless Jackman for getting out his ‘greasy tits’.)

Juvenile, daft, irreverent and sentimental, Deadpool is a messy riot. As the boy themselves say; ‘Let’s f***ing go!’

deadpool & wolverine, emma corrin, hugh jackman, ryan reynolds, shawn levy, hollywood authentic
© 2024 20th Century Studios / © and 2024 MARVEL. Jay Maidment

Deadpool & Wolverine is in cinemas now

TWISTERS

July 18, 2024

anthony ramos, daisy edgar-jones, glen powell, lee isaac chung, twisters

Words by JANE CROWTHER

The latest retro refit of a beloved blockbuster taps into the wins of Top Gun: Maverick – not least in harnessing the star wattage of Hangman himself, Glen Powell, to fuel a sexy, entertaining big screen ride designed for the IMAX wow-factor, that you won’t regret spending cash on.

Capitalising on the verve he also displayed in Hit Man, Powell arrives on-screen as a fully formed movie star here – all cocky swagger, dazzling smile and palpable chemistry with Daisy Edgar-Jones – as a cowboy (literally and figuratively) storm chaser, Tyler, who pops fireworks into the eye of tornadoes for his YouTube channel. He’s as loud as his Western shirts and seems to have little care for the destruction and danger these weather events pose to the inhabitants living in their shadow in Oklahoma. He’s the nemesis of a sober scientific team led by Javi (Anthony Ramos) who has co-opted his former classmate, Kate (Edgar Jones) to help in locating twisters in order to study them. Kate’s in a spin of her own having survived a deadly T5 tornado five years earlier which killed her partner and friends in the process of trying out an experiment to stop the storm from raging – but she’s also preternaturally gifted at sensing where and when a twister will land.

As the two teams (hedonistic youtubers vs ethical scientists) try to outsmart each other to get tornado gold, a love triangle forms between Tyler, Javi and Kate, and a film that on the surface is about thrilling audiences with big stunt pieces and effects, begins to explore who the real victims are of cynical capitalism and lack of investment in economies and communities in the path of destruction. A neatly executed bait’n’switch shows the bad guys aren’t necessarily who we might think…

anthony ramos, daisy edgar-jones, glen powell, lee isaac chung, twisters

Minari director Lee Isaac Chung takes up Jan De Bont’s baton from 1996’s Twister (though no flying cows in this one), bringing a gentle authenticity to the Oklahoma people he sketches and a no-holds-barred approach to the action. Like Maverick, Twisters succeeds in landing the emotional journey and investment in character as well as the heart-quickening set pieces that are so furious it’s like spending time in a tumble dryer. Each action sequence ups the ante until a moment set in a cinema (Ha! Of course!) leaves both cast and audience hanging on by their fingertips – breath snatched by the physical and CG effects, but also caring for the outcomes of the characters. It’s a disarming and polished combination that seems to buck the algorithm and gives Twisters the edge on being just another big budget disaster blockbuster cashing in on legacy IP.

Twisters is in cinemas now

MAXXXINE

July 5, 2024

charley rowan mccain, maxxxine, mia goth, simon prast, ti west

Words by JANE CROWTHER

‘In this business,’ reads the opening quote by Bette Davis, ‘until you’re known as a monster, you’re not a star.’ In Ti West’s slasher trilogy closer (which began with X and continued with Pearl), that correlation between audience appetite for depravity and the ruthless ambition required for climbing the Hollywood ladder is explored via eighties video nasties and lurid headlines. Seeing the two previous films West has made with his star, Mia Goth, isn’t a requirement to get into the scuzzy, febrile vibe of this installment but there are delicious easter eggs and call backs for those who’ve made the multi-era journey. 

charley rowan mccain, maxxxine, mia goth, simon prast, ti west

For the uninitiated, X followed a 1979 porn shoot gone bloodily wrong when Pearl, the elderly owner of a Texas farm preys on the cast and crew including Maxine Minx (Goth). Pearl tracks the titular character in her youth (Goth), transmuting from WW1-era farm girl to killer. Now, we reunite with Maxine (Goth) trying to outrun her past in 1985 Hollywood where moral panic about movies and music is at a hysterical high, and serial killer the Night Stalker casts a violent pall over the city. Hoping to transition from adult to mainstream movies, Maxine auditions for a horror sequel directed by Elizabeth Debicki’s helmer just as a venal PI (Kevin Bacon) starts tailing her and her friends begin to be butchered…

charley rowan mccain, maxxxine, mia goth, simon prast, ti west

The most gleeful and self-reflexive of the trilogy, Maxxxine is filthy-gorgeous and neon-drenched, loaded with Hollywood hat-tips to movie lore and iconic flicks. Theda Bara, the Hollywood sign, Chinatown, Psycho, Mann’s Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Universal’s backlot, the good cop/bad cop, psycho-biddy and the last girl tropes… all are woven into a winky, trashy celebration of the dream factory and the VHS era. The horror is squelchy, lurid, daft (balls are skewered, heads popped), the performances equally ripe.

charley rowan mccain, maxxxine, mia goth, simon prast, ti west

Bacon is a hoot as a Jake Gittes-lite gumshoe with a Southern accent oozing molasses (who later oozes in a mischievously horrible way) while Debicki and Lily Collins lean into cliches of ballbusters and starlets. But the film belongs to Goth, strutting through every scene with a killer wardrobe and attitude for days. A woman with ‘monstrous’ ambition who talks about fame in terms of simply working hard, Maxine is a trope and a timeless truism. Those background billboards asking for the ‘X Factor’ and the nods to tinseltown cults, audience prurience and the career-making power of scandal are as relevant today as they were in ‘85. It’s a film like the one Dibicki’s director is making: A B-movie with A ideas.

Maxxxine is in cinemas from 5 July

THE BIKERIDERS

June 21, 2024

tom hardy, austin butler, jodie comer, the bikeriders, jeff nichols

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Jeff Nichols taps a certain type of Americana with his tactile, evocative films, and his adaptation of Danny Lyon’s seminal photo-essay book, The Bikeriders, is an artistic collaboration that quickens the pulse as much as the guttural rev of a classic Harley Davidson. Lyon tracked a group of bikers in 60s Chicago and readers could practically smell the engine oil and hair grease in his black-and-white photos of meets and the outlier community formed around them. Nichols has taken that aesthetic and run with it, crafting a screenplay that explores identity, social tribes, loyalty, lust and the thrill of the open road in a love triangle formed between three stars operating at full wattage.

Seen through the eyes of Kathy (Jodie Comer) as she looks back on her romance with maverick Benny (Austin Butler), this patchwork of moments straddle a decade as biker gang, the Vandals, grow from a grassroots outfit to a State-wide, and increasingly violent, operation. As Kathy tells it – in a brawny Chicago idiolect Comer has expertly lifted directly from Lyon’s own interviews with the real woman – she must share Benny with the road and gang leader, Johnny (Tom Hardy, doing some of his best work). The process of trying to tie him down parallels the difficulty of halting the brutal evolution of the vandals: Benny is a man who is all feral instinct and doesn’t want to be anything to anyone, the gang cannot remain as ‘riding club’ as Johnny first conceived it without a tough new kingpin. As Kathy tries to pin Benny down to domesticity, Johnny tries to woo him to leadership…

tom hardy, austin butler, jodie comer, the bikeriders, jeff nichols
tom hardy, austin butler, jodie comer, the bikeriders, jeff nichols

Adam Stone’s cinematography echoes Lyon’s cool pictures as a stellar cast breathe intricate life into snapshots of characters in the gang. Michael Shannon is alpha hurt as Zipco, a man who hates ‘pinko college kids’ but smarts from being rejected by the army. Boyd Holbrook exudes zen (and the art of motorcycle maintenance) as Cal, the gang’s mechanic. Norman Reedus does bad teeth and hippy impishness as Funny Sonny, a California big-hair. Building on his menace in Babyteeth and The Royal Hotel, Toby Wallace brings chaos energy; and Mike Faist, Emery Cohen and Damon Herriman make impressions despite practical cameos.

But the film belongs to a trifecta of charisma. Hardy, a reluctant hardman with a soft core and a gut-punch of a narrative arc. Butler, giving a bad boy heartthrob emotional depth while understanding his role as an archetype. Comer, flexing her considerable skills and more than matching her on-screen partners. When the trio interact the atmosphere crackles and glows like the embers of the numerous cigarettes they smoke. A meet-cute between Kathy and Benny and a conversation between Benny and Johnny are matched in their erotic charge, and the space between their silences speak volumes. And when they’re riding gleaming chrome bikes into the vanishing point of midwest roads as vintage needle-drops play…

It’s the sort of character-led cinema Hollywood would have you believe is as consigned to the past as a ‘65 panhead Harley. That textured, gritty storytelling that immerses audiences in a specific world without spoon feeding. And a showcase for artists onscreen and off (that cinematography, Erin Benach’s precise costumes, Chad Keith’s period perfect production design) who will surely be shortlisted come awards season.

Be warned, it will make you want to buy a bike…

tom hardy, austin butler, jodie comer, the bikeriders, jeff nichols

The Bikeriders directed by Jeff Nichols staring Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and Jodie Comer is in cinemas now

THE SHROUDS

May 23, 2024

david cronenberg, the shrouds, vincent cassel, diane kruger

Words by JANE CROWTHER

David Cronenberg’s latest is a riddle about grief, loss and mortality wrapped in a whodunnit so twisty you may well have to watch again the minute it ends. It focuses on Karsh (Vincent Cassel) a widower who provides hi-tech graves to wealthy Toronto dwellers. Instead of simply burying their dead, clients buy a sci-fi digi ‘shroud’ that maps every rotting detail of their loved one’s corpse and transmits to the screen in their headstone as well as to an app on their phone. He’s also opened a gourmet restaurant in the graveyard where a blind date is understandably put off by his obsession with the recently deceased, most particularly his wife Becca (Diane Kruger), who perished after numerous procedures to battle breast cancer. 

Plagued by dreams of his wife (always nude, her body incrementally more mutilated by medicine), Karsh also toys with living women; Becca’s identical sister Terri (also Kruger) who is aware that her likeness to her sibling creates a frisson, and a mysterious blind client (Sandrine Holt), who’s own partner is succumbing to cancer. Throw in to the mix a vandal attack on the graveyard, Terri’s shambolic ex, Maury (Guy Pearce) and the possibility of a conspiracy that could involve protestors, the Chinese government or Karsh’s AI assistant Honey (also voiced by Kruger) and The Shrouds gets deep into issues of AI, spyware, fidelity and sorrow in Cronenberg’s trademark clinical style.

A deeply personal film for the director (his own wife died in 2017 and Cassel’s look seems borrowed from the auteur), The Shrouds explores the bewilderment and paranoia of grief while staring death in the face via decomposition and with no easy resolution. Is it pure Cronenberg? Yes. Does it have answers? No. And that will be a thrilling/frustrating experience depending on your taste.

david cronenberg, the shrouds, vincent cassel, diane kruger

David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds starring Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger played at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and will be released in cinemas later this year

LIMONOV: THE BALLAD

May 23, 2024

limonov: the ballad of eddie, kirill serebrennikov, ben whishaw, viktoria miroshnichenko

Words by JAMES MOTTRAM

Ben Whishaw offers a fiery, unfettered turn in Limovov: The Ballad, a stylish and compelling portrait of a unique figure in recent Russian history. The subject is the real-life dissident poet and politician Edward Limonov, who co-founded in 1993 the ultra-nationalist National Bolshevik Party and lived a life of revolution and rebellion. Adapted from Emmanuel Carrères’ novelised biography that was published in 2011, the film comes co-written and directed by the hugely talented Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov (Leto, Petrov’s Flu).

Here, Serebrennikov co-scripts with Ben Hopkins (Simon Magus) and Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War, Ida), two intriguing filmmakers in their own right. The results are as explosive as they are impressive, tracing Limonov’s life from his early literary years to his time in politics around the turn of the Millennium. Arrogant and assured – ‘I’m better than all those mindless people in Moscow,’ trills Eddie, as he prefers to be known – Whishaw carrying off Limonov’s cocksure swagger with real aplomb.

The British actor famed for Q in the Daniel Craig-era James Bond films and voicing Paddington Bear in the recent movie series is tremendous and transformative as the transgressive rebel. He’s cursed with a quick-fire temper, from fits of jealous rage over the love of his life, the willow-like model Elena (Viktoria Miroshnichenko), to disparaging protestors on the streets in New York who he feels are not radical enough. 

Limonov, who died in 2020 before the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, is shown here in various guises (butler, celebrity, prisoner and more), with Serebrennikov going all-out to spirit audiences along through thirty-odd years of history, with a considerable pitstop in 1970s New York. Scored with a love for Lou Reed (‘Walk on the Wild Side’ gets a good airing) and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, it’s an electric way to take on a political biopic. 

One of the most remarkable sequences comes as Serebrennikov spins us across the 1980s, right up to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the fall of the Berlin Wall, in a transitional montage bursting with imagination. Cut to the Sex Pistols’ ‘Pretty Vacant’, Whishaw’s character runs through a series of ‘rooms’ on a street, each representing a moment in time, as images from Margaret Thatcher to The Terminator flash past. 

While some will accuse Limonov: The Ballad of sacrificing substance for style, questioning whether it digs into its subject’s political motivations enough, there can be no doubt that this is expert filmmaking, brimming with vigour. ‘Life is much more interesting than writing,’ says Limonov; Serebrennikov shows this vibrantly.

Kirill Serebrennikov’s Limonov: The Ballad starring Ben Whishaw and Viktoria Miroshnichenko played at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and will release in cinemas later this year

PARTHENOPE

May 22, 2024

parthenope, paolo sorrentino, celeste dalla porte, gary oldman, silvio orlando, daniele rienzo
parthenope, paolo sorrentino, celeste dalla porte, gary oldman, silvio orlando, daniele rienzo

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Parthenope is the occasional moniker of Naples after the same-named siren in Greek mythology threw herself in the sea to drown to stop herself from luring Ulysses, and washed up on the shores of the city – beloved home of Paolo Sorrentino. It’s also the name given to the protagonist of his latest love letter to his hometown, a girl born in Neopolitan waters who grows to be such a beauty that no man is immune to her, including her brother (Chalamet-esqe Daniele Rienzo). Charting her education – romantic, sexual and academic – from bikini-clad teen ingénue in 1968 to her retirement as a beloved colleague and mentor in 2023, Parthenope explores ideas of the burden of beauty, male entitlement, female empowerment and well, just how damn gorgeous Naples and Capri are. Along the way, ‘Parthé’ experiences different types of male attention; lethally enmeshed, lecherous, worshipful, possessive, nurturing, transgressive, as well as various versions of female agency and disenfranchisement. 

parthenope, paolo sorrentino, celeste dalla porte, gary oldman, silvio orlando, daniele rienzo

Sorrentino has always created beautiful tableaux and his lens makes both the azure seas and faded splendour of Naples and Celeste Dalla Porta as Parthenope a visual treat. Fully embracing the power of her attractiveness, the 18-year-old emerges from the sea to smoke a cigarette and bats away suitors with her wit. She is, after all, not just a pretty face. A straight-A student in anthropology, Parthenope meets two formative men during her late teens – alcoholic, melancholic novelist, John Cheever, who cries for the beauty in the world and gently rebuffs her (Gary Oldman, wonderful in a matter of minutes); and her grumpy uni professor (Silvio Orlando) who only ever engages with her brain. But a family tragedy sends her spiralling, making her unsure of how to direct the power she holds…

parthenope, paolo sorrentino, celeste dalla porte, gary oldman, silvio orlando, daniele rienzo


Sorrentino has great fun unpicking the dirty-gorgeous character of Naples (football, religion, a superstar actress based on Sophia Loren) as well as the directionlessness of girlhood. And though some of Parthenope’s decisions seem to play into the very male gaze and misogyny the director initially appears to be examining (a church-set sex scene featuring speedos and religious treasures may test some viewers), Parthenope, with some fourth wall breaking, ultimately asks audiences to question their own relationship to aesthetics and youth. The question she asks a perving older family friend at the start of the film is silently asked again by the end; would Parthenope still be so attractive to men if she were 40 years older? And speaking of aesthetics, be warned, it’s impossible to watch and not want to immediately book a plane to Naples…

Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope starring Celeste Dalla Porta, Gary Oldman, Silvio Orlando and Daniele Rienzo is screening at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and will release in cinemas TBC

THE APPRENTICE

May 21, 2024

sebastian stan, the apprentice, jeremy strong, ali abbasi, cannes dispatch, greg williams

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Ali Abbasi’s take on the origins of Donald Trump’s take-no-prisoners MO plays as a scuzzy 70s version of the Shakespearean Hal/Falstaff dynamic that stop short of his political career but includes plenty of cheeky prescience towards the 45th former POTUS’ now famous traits.

We meet Trump (Sebastian Stan) as a debt collector for his disapproving Dad (Martin Donovan) and a wannabe real-estate player with dreams of building the best hotel in a Manhattan riddled with vice and poverty. A New Yorker who wants to see the city bounce back from 70s debt and lawlessness, make cash and get out from under Daddy’s shadow, Trump is a callow water-drinking youth ripe for shaping when he meets infamous lawyer, Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) in a private members club. A ruthless, influential and feared man who hangs out with crime kingpins and will do whatever it takes to win a case, Cohn sees potential in Trump – taking him under his wing to teach him three rules for being a ‘killer’ in life. It’s advice viewers will recognise; attack, attack, attack; the truth is fluid, never admit defeat.

As Cohn’s mentorship (in dressing, media manipulation, networking) takes hold Trump’s image begins to crystallise – the navy suits, the helmet hair, the hyperbole – and he sheds his past. His father is eclipsed, his troubled brother jettisoned, his wife Ivana (Maria Bakalova) betrayed… and Trump gets liposuction, his bald patch removed, his face looks more and more like, in Ivana’s words, ‘an orange’.

Though Stan portrays Trump with some signature moves (hand gestures, his stiff neck, the pouting) his performance is nuanced, getting to the heart of the stone-cold ambition and narcissism that took him from knocking on doors for rent money to the oval office. And he throws himself into the more cartoonish moments with relish as Trump meets Andy Warhol, gobbles speed, gets blow-jobs from casino girls and worries about his weight while refusing to exercise. 

But the more interesting aspect of the film is not necessarily the rise of an international figure, it’s the man who shaped him. Strong is repellent and reptilian as Cohn, an unblinking mercenary who oozes malevolence and misanthropy, and ultimately, one of the first people Trump stabs in the back. Though a controversial marital rape scene horrifies, drawing audible gasps from the Cannes audience, it’s Cohn’s treatment at the hands Trump that really strikes a nerve in a movie that dramatises known aspects of his rise to power.

Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice starring Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova and Martin Donovan is screening at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Release date TBC

THE SUBSTANCE

May 20, 2024

demi moore, the substance, margaret qualley, dennis quiad

Words by JANE CROWTHER

After making an impression with her feminist debut Revenge, writer-director Coralie Fargeat delivers on her promise with a provocative, gory film that sews together All About Eve and David Cronenberg body horror with instant-cult results. It also marks an explosive return to cinema for Demi Moore in a no-holds-barred role that reflects her own vocation and is a female roar against #MeToo, ageism, self-hate and dream factory objectification.

Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, an actress whose best years are behind her, her star on the pavement cracked, her career reduced to fitness TV shows. A still beautiful and vital woman with experience and skills, Elisabeth is considered old news by her hideous network boss – a braying, sexist egotist in flashy suits who insists ‘all pretty girls should smile’ and ogles every woman in his vicinity with unvarnished lecherousness and possession (Dennis Quaid). He’s called Harvey, of course. 

Feeling threatened by her industry and buying into its standards of beauty, Elisabeth despairs at her reflection in the mirror, prodding a body that is strong, real and lived in with disgust. Brought low by her perceived lack of value, she’s the perfect candidate for a new off-books treatment called The Substance – a complicated system of injections, liquid nutrition and spinal taps that allows the user to regenerate a new self – one younger, fitter, more beautiful than they are. Eager for the promise of youth Elisabeth injects, giving horrific ‘birth’ (to say more would spoil the treats of this bloody scream of a movie) to ‘Sue’ (Margaret Qualley) a gorgeous creature who Elisabeth can live through as she becomes an instant star and sex symbol. There are naturally rules of the treatment and if they are bent all hell will break loose, and when it does… buckle up.

Viciously funny while also being profound, The Substance taps into the fears and rages of women in and out of the public eye. ‘After 50 it all ends’ is a repeated mantra in a film that explores the perceived physical limitations on female usefulness, the complicity of women living in a society that dictates their attractiveness and the dark side of cosmetic surgery and procedures. Every time a shudder-inducing injection is made we’re reminded of botox, fillers, Ozempic, the normalised pursuit of beauty. Fargeat questions what the monstrous outcome of this might be as Elisabeth suffers for her regime, culminating in a finale that is a magnificent horror.

Qualley is wonderful as the rapacious Sue, a wide-eyed ingénue who will literally step on the sisterhood to get ahead, but the film is Moore’s – elegant, vulnerable, bonkers in a role that requires her to strip naked both physically and emotionally. Must-see cinema with bite that will make viewers question how critically they look at others as well as in the mirror.

Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid is screening at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. It will be released by MUBI later this year

HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA

May 20, 2024

kevin costner, horizon: an american saga, screening room

Words by JANE CROWTHER

From his Oscar-winning Dances With Wolves to 2003’s Open Range, not to mention his recent Paramount series Yellowstone, Kevin Costner has defined the modern-day western like few other actor-directors. Yet even he surpasses himself here, crafting an epic – and we do mean epic – story set in the Old West. With the first part being presented out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Horizon: An American Saga is an enormously ambitious project for Costner, who partly funded it himself, with the intention of ultimately directing four parts (the first two are in the can, the third should begin shooting in August). 

On this evidence, one can only hope Costner gets to deliver his vision in full. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is a richly handsome and evocative look at the expansion of the American West. Co-scripted with Jon Baird (the British filmmaker behind Stan and Ollie), Chapter 1 runs at an immersive three hours, allowing the viewer to luxuriate in character development, in phenomenal landscapes of Wyoming and Montana and the occasional jaw-dropping action scene. 

Set during the American Civil War, settlers arrive at a newly-formed town called Horizon, where they are at risk from indigenous tribes who hunt the land and will risk everything to battle against being colonised. One of the film’s most staggering sequences comes early, when Frances (Sienna Miller), a married mother of two, is caught up in a vicious attack that sees her and her daughter hiding out beneath the ground as her house and others are set ablaze. 

An ensemble story, characters come and go, and even Costner himself doesn’t arrive on screen until the hour mark as Hayes Ellison, a lone wolf figure who knows the West like the back of his weather-worn hand. He will ultimately find company with the spiky mother Marigold (Mad Max: Fury Road star Abbey Lee), although you sense that his story is only just beginning. The same goes for First Lt. Trent Gephardt (Avatar star Sam Worthington), one of the leading lights in the United States Army called in to protect the settlers. 

Making nods to John Ford westerns, Costner’s return to directing after a two-decade hiatus is a joy to behold. Charting events with a no-frills approach, it’s as traditional as they come, a real nod to old-school filmmaking. At one point, Hayes shoots down an assailant, the camera lingering on his reflection in a trough of water. It’s a beautiful moment in a film full of them.

Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga starring Kevin Costner, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington and Abbey Lee) is screening at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Release date 28 June

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