My Best Friend's Wedding

 My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)

Starring Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Cameron Diaz, and Rupert Everett

Directed by P.J. Hogan

Written by Ronald Bass

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

Starring Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Samuel L. Jackson, Rupert Everett, Allison Janney, Chris O'Dowd, Terence Stamp, Ella Purnell, and Judi Dench

Directed by Tim Burton

Things started out so positively in the titularly long-winded Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children that I thought Tim Burton may had finally found himself back on the positive side of things after giving us such directorial dreck as Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows, and Big Eyes over the past decade.  Unfortunately, the eerie quirkiness that is the staple of the director's work hinders things here rather than helping which causes the film to falter after an incredibly promising opening thirty minutes.  That said, perhaps my disappointment with the film isn't fully Burton's fault -- I had actually read this young adult novel upon which this was based and found it oddly un-compelling considering its unique subject matter so maybe enjoyment of this work as a cinematic experience was never in the cards for me in the first place.

Grandpa Abe (Terence Stamp) has for years regaled his grandson Jake (Asa Butterfield) with WWII stories in which he says he spent a great deal of time at Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children in Wales.  The tales of the odd kids that inhabited the house stuck with Jake and following his grandfather's unfortunate and odd death, Jake and his father (Chris O'Dowd) travel to Wales to try and give them both some closure.  The exposition-filled opening act was impressively tailored by Burton to give the film a quirky vibe which, while successful initially, begins to teeter upon Jake's arrival in Wales.  Upon arriving, Jake discovers that the home of his grandfather's stories was destroyed in an air raid during the 1940s, but when he visits the house, he is greeted by a group of children who end up taking him through a time portal and back in time to September 3, 1943, where he meets the caretaker of both the home and the children residing in it -- Miss Peregrine (Eva Green).  Jake is told that Miss Peregrine has the unique ability to manipulate time and, because of this, she has created a world in which the children under her care relive the same day -- September 3, 1943 -- over and over again.  Their peaceful existence seems quaint enough, but Jake soon discovers that not everyone is happy with Miss Peregrine's abilities and there may be some other "Peculiars" who would like to see her home cease to exist.

Ultimately, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children becomes too bogged down in convoluted plot to really land successfully.  If that summary above proved a bit twisted, it's frankly much more complicated than that.  Sure, there are some nice performances which help the whole affair.  Eva Green in particular, who I've not like in the past, is charmingly odd and it works incredibly well. Asa Butterfield is somewhat of a blank slate, but I think that works for his character here (much like his role in Hugo) as he is faced with the absurdity of what he encounters.

And Burton himself really tries as a director to make the picture a success.  Despite not liking the movie all that much, this is Burton's best turn behind a camera in years.  He successfully created the world in which these characters exist -- unfortunately, the world is just a bit too confusing to succeed itself.  While not an out-and-out failure, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children ultimately is a disappointment.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Hysteria

Hysteria (2012)

Starring Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rupert Everett, Jonathan Pryce, and Felicity Jones

Directed by Tanya Wexler

British women in the late 19th century were irritable creatures.  Garnering very little respect from their husbands, they found themselves heading to their doctors where they were diagnosed with "hysteria."  The cure, employed by docs like Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce), was to massage the genital area (in a purely decent manner underneath a velvet curtain) to induce a "paroxysmal convulsion" unaware that this was actually an orgasm.  Dr. Dalrymple finds his practice overwhelmed with hysterical women so he hires young physician Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) who happens to have a knack for curing the disease.  More and more women flock to him to be relieved of their sickness which unfortunately causes his hand to cramp up substantially and he is fired by Dalrymple for not being able to perform his duties.  This dismissal happens to be quite fortuitous as Mortimer discovers that his friend Lord Edmund St. John-Smythe (Rupert Everett) has developed an electric feather duster which Mortimer believes could be the answer to his injured hand and the ladies' hysteria problems.  And, henceforth, the vibrator forever became a tool for women across the world.

Hysteria tells the story of the invention of the vibrator...and if that were the only story it told, it would've been a success.  Instead, the trio of screenwriters add in a love triangle involving Mortimer and Dr. Dalrymple's two daughters -- the younger, more reverent Emily (Felicity Jones) and the older, new-age feminist Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal) -- which takes over the film's second half and causes it to fall flat on its face.  The obvious nature of the resolution of the love triangle from the film's outset created nary a modicum of tension and failed to resonate in the slightest despite the valiant efforts of Hugh Dancy who tries his hardest to be charming and carry the film on his shoulders.

I wanted to like this movie and for the first 45 minutes or so, I found Hysteria humorous enough to warrant its existence.  However, as the film progresses, it abandons its subject matter which makes it unique and turns into something we've seen over and over again in movies better than this.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-