Watching/Reading Log #49

It's 2020, and my resolution to focus on female-focused media has begun, even if a few shows I started last year were finished up this month. Still, I'm looking forward to this resolution and what new projects it introduces me to, and I got off to a good start with Greta Gerwig's take on Little Women. There's also another novel by Frances Hardinge (READ HER) and a somewhat mixed offering from Mindy Kaling.

I'm ready!

Nine Worlds in Nine Nights by Hiawyn Oram and David Wyatt

David Wyatt is one of my favourite illustrators and he excels at fantastical landscapes and cities. So this project was perfect for him, in which a cynical professor is whisked away in a phantom machine to visit nine (obviously) imaginary worlds from various novels and mythologies. There's not much of a story here, just her notes as she explores each location and gradually comes to terms with her lost childhood.

There are some familiar places: Asgard, Lilliput, Camelot, Atlantis, but also ones I'd never heard of before: Buyan from Slavic mythology, Mecanopolis from a somewhat obscure book, and the Dimskye Mountains, which I can't reference at all. Has anyone else heard of them? Each location gets two full-page spreads, packed with as much information as possible about the people, culture and architecture.

It doesn't take too long to read, but Wyatt's work is always worth enjoying.

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

Yes, I was reading this concurrently with the television show, and so inevitably making comparisons between page and screen. I actually haven't read Northern Lights for over a decade, since I had to take a very long break from it after my thesis, but it was SO NICE to return and find it hadn't lost its magic. Going through the pages I found myself thinking "okay, this is my favourite part, no this is my favourite part" and looking forward to the chapters I knew were still to come.

It's such an impossibly rich text, and despite being a children's book every page, every sentence, is dense and interesting and thematically important. Okay, maybe not every sentence, but Pullman has this incredible gift of packing so much atmosphere and intrigue into just a handful of words. As such, everything in Northern Lights feels real and lived-in and packed with history and detail.

It made me realize that it was the world-building that appeals to me more than any other aspect of the story. As an adult I can appreciate Lyra as a character in a way I didn't as a child or uni student, but it was the world she lived in that really captivated me. And I'm not just talking about the presence of daemons, but the streets of Oxford, and the wild Fens, the glamour of Mrs Coulter's apartment, and the beauty of the North. He packs all of it with personality and detail, as here:

That wide and never fully mapped wilderness of huge skies and endless marshlands in eastern Anglia. The furtherest fringe of it mingled indistinguishably with the creeks and tidal inlets of the shallow sea, and the other side of the seas mingled indistinguishably with Holland; and parts of the Fens had been drained and dyked by Hollanders, some of whom had settled there; so the language of the Fens was thick with Dutch. But parts had never been drained or planted or settled at all, and in the wildest regions, where eels slithered and water-birds flocked, where eerie marsh-fires flickered and waylurkers tempted careless travellers to their doom in the swamps and bogs, the gyptian people had always found it safe to muster.

*deep sigh* I love that.

Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge

I continue my foray into the collected works of Frances Hardinge and she hasn't let me down yet. I believe this was her first novel, and you can kind of tell that the story isn't quite as polished as her later works, but her obvious love of language and words shines through.

As with Northern Lights, it's Hardinge's ability to convey her world-building elegantly and interestingly that really pulled me into the story. This is a world where a person's name is the most important thing about them (no one would ever dare giving a false alias) and each one is decided by the day, the hour, the minute that they're born. Every unit of time is devoted to a particular god and a person's temperament is determined by this, their patron god, as degreed by the hour of the day in which they're born.

Naturally our heroine is not born under a particularly auspicious god. In fact, Mosca Mye was born in the hour of Goodman Palpitattle, He Who Keeps Flies out of Jams and Butterchurns. What's more, Mosca lives in a country ruled by strict guilds and a fractured parliament, where book-burnings and arrests are common. The twisty-turny story makes it difficult to provide a concise summary, but when Mosca gets wind of a treasonous plot, she has to negotiate the dangerous (and at times, incomprehensible) rules of her world in order to reach the best possible outcome for herself.

At times both the plot and the prose get a little convoluted, so I wouldn't recommend this as your first Hardinge read (that should be Cuckoo Song), but definitely put it on your TBR list.

Rose Raventhorpe Investigates by Janine Beacham

This is actually three books, each with tantalizing titles: Black Cats and Butlers, Rubies and Runaways, and Hounds and Hauntings. Delectable!

That said, the stories themselves weren't quite as good as their titles suggested. Rose Raventhorpe is a young noblewoman living in Yorke during the Victorian Era, who deals with a range of strange mysteries involving murdered butlers, missing orphans, and a range of dog attacks (in that order). Beacham writes very atmospherically, but there's a surprising amount of supernatural content here as well, whether it's cat statues that come to life, or ghostly dogs out on the moor.

Mixing mysteries with the supernatural is always a mistake in my opinion, as at a certain point it destroys the rules of "fair play" mystery writing if there's the possibility that a ghost or spirit committed the crime. Other elements are a little outlandish, such as a secret league of butlers that can access an underground network of tunnels all across Yorke.

I think I was a little spoiled by Katherine Woodfine's excellent Sinclair's Mysteries series, not to mention this trilogy definitely being aimed a younger audience. Fun while they lasted, but not essential reads in the young detective period mystery genre.

Little Women (1933)

I saw Greta Gerwig's take on Little Women last Friday, so naturally that meant I had to go back and watch previous iterations of the classic novel. I read the book years ago in its entirety, though much earlier in my childhood I was familiar with the story due to an abridged copy of the story - though even then, I could tell that something was odd about the way it unfolded, and it wasn't until much later I realized great chunks of the text were missing.

Little Women is a coming-of-age story for many young female readers. We classify ourselves as a "Jo" or a "Meg" or a "Beth", and you can mark the progress of a girl's maturity as she goes from outrage that Jo and Laurie don't hook up, to acknowledgement that Professor Bhaer was a much better match, to more critical analysis as to why Jo had to marry ANYONE.

Katherine Hepburn provides one logical answer: Jo is a giant lesbian. I mean, it's so obvious here that it's almost funny. All of the quotes about how much she hates men and wants her sisters to be left alone are present and accounted for, and Hepburn plays the character with as much talk-loudly-and-take-up-space masculinity as she can muster (which is quite a lot).

Poor Laurie never had a chance against this wall of gay, and Professor Bhaer comes across as more of a beard than anything else: he constantly refers to her as "little friend", Jo speaks of loneliness and wanting companionship in the lead-up to his return, and then when they finally reunite they don't even kiss, just warmly embrace! The whole thing has to be seen to be believed, but the queer subtext is barely subtext, even in 1933.

As with most Little Women adaptations, Jo is treated as the main character, though this is also a very good showcase for Beth. She makes a surprisingly big impression, and the relationship she has with Jo is probably the centrepiece of the film, surpassing even Laurie. (Even if Beth eventually dies with all the sentimentality you'd expect of the period - she's not two seconds gone and Jo is telling Marmee not to cry because at least now her sister's suffering is over. Girl, let the woman grieve!)

Likewise, the film is able to wring plenty of poignancy and heartbreak from Jo's rejection of Laurie (this always plays well) but has absolutely no idea what to do with the burgeoning relationship of Laurie and Amy. It wasn't until last year that Greta Gerwig was finally able to sell the idea of that relationship, but here they don't even bother. They depict Amy and Laurie reuniting after Beth's death (in a scene that's more about his grandfather and Aunt March) and that's it. The next we see of them they're arriving home as husband and wife.

Just as it takes a lifetime of reading the novel to grasp Louisa May Alcott's understanding of Jo/Laurie, Jo/Bhaer and Laurie/Amy, so too do the movies gradually learn to give each of these relationships the time and space they need to develop properly. Heck, I'd say Greta Gerwig does more to sell Amy/Laurie than the book itself! But I'll get to that...

The Princess and the Frog (2009)

I reviewed this a few years ago in great detail, and as such don't have much more to add but what I spelled out last time: The Princess and the Frog is a sincere but rather muddled offering, which works best when it's deconstructing Disney tropes and fails when it leans into them. 

The characters of Tiana, Naveen and Carlotta are delightful, and the New Orleans setting gives the whole thing a distinct atmosphere. But the villain's plan is so complex that it barely makes sense, and the requisite animal sidekicks are completely pointless.

It altogether stands in an odd place in the Disney canon: featuring not only the first African-American princess, but one who had clear goals and ambitions, and yet also being the last 2-D animated princess film before the studio switched permanently to computer animation. It was a beginning and an end.

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

Pixar gets endless accolades for its creative output, but there's another animation studio that's just as consistent in its quality films (okay, The Boxtrolls was a bit of a dud). Laika Studios have given us Coraline, Paranorman, Corpse Bride and Missing Link - but perhaps their best is Kubo and the Two Strings.

It is stunning in its scope and colour, its vivid characters, the poignancy of the story, and its use of Japanese mythology and culture (though unfortunately voiced by a largely white cast). I don't want to give too much away about the plot, but it's a film about love and family, growing  up and the power of stories - you know, all the good stuff.

SPOILERS

There is one false note, and that's the "redemption" of the villain, who ends the film getting his memories wiped and the villagers taking advantage of this to proclaim him a kind, gentle man beloved by the people. Look, it's good we live in a more empathetic world which likes to grant second chances, something that's demonstrated in so many of our current stories, but this ongoing need to throw cheap absolution at all and sundry is a problem.

In this case it ignores all the suffering and pain the villain caused, forgetting that there is just as much power in narrative justice, especially for genuine monsters that never even ask for second chances.

Still, if you can overlook this rather botched note of unearned redemption, you'll find so much to enjoy in nearly every other frame.

Little Women (2019)

My first movie of the year, and it's a female-directed, female-led story based on a novel by a female writer. Check, check and check. Admittedly I wasn't that excited by the thought of another Little Women adaptation, especially after the BBC miniseries in 2017 which gave me my favourite depiction of Jo as played by Maya Hawke.

But every new version has something different to bring to the table, and Greta Gerwig excels in three distinct areas: a) playing with the chronology so as to better explore the contrast between Little Women and Good Wives (which are never published separately these days, though the difference in tone is striking), b) delving into the inevitable and overwhelming feeling of dismay each reader felt when the warmth matriarchal home of the March sisters is eventually dismantled by three profoundly disappointing - if not baffling - marriages, and c) justice for Amy!

I'm going to make her woman of the month for February, so I'll have more to say about that later, but if the 2017 miniseries sold you on the idea of Jo and Laurie not being right for each other, then this will finally sell you on Laurie and Amy as a couple.

Firstly, the way that Gerwig shifts and alters the book's chronology is interesting: it begins with Jo in New York and Laurie and Amy reuniting in Europe, with flashbacks to their childhood depicted in golden hues. This creates the sense of an unreliable narrator, with the long-ago years coming across as idealized memories, and often contrasted to great effect. (Good example: Meg's "Vanity Fair" chapter has her enjoying the luxury of the ball, and cuts to her present-day depression at living in abject poverty).

Secondly, Gerwig is well aware of the book's shift from childhood to adulthood (marked by marriage) and how much more appealing the story is when it's about the former and not the latter. John Brooke, Laurie and Professor Bhaer are hardly great catches (Bhaer is the best, but even so...) and though she's relatively kind in her portrayals of all three men, there's still that underlying sense of knowing that the marriage is (in Amy's words) "an economic proposition".

Jo and Professor Bhaer in particular is handled in an incredibly interesting way: despite Bhaer being cast as young and handsome, the scenes of their reunion (which involves Jo running after him to the train station in a sweeping, romantic gesture) are intercut with Jo negotiating her book with its publisher, in which she repeats Amy's words: "an economic proposition." Jo wants more money, and the publisher wants all the female characters to be married in the end.

And so all the scenes involving Jo and Bhaer are called into question. Does she really go after him, or is that a complete fabrication that she comes up with for her story? What makes it even more ingenious is that this is the precise trouble Louisa May Alcott herself ran into when it came to writing her story. She was perfectly happy to keep Jo single, and in her journal wrote: "Girls write to ask who the little women marry, as if that was the only end and aim of a woman's life. I won't marry Jo to Laurie to please any one."

She clearly had a complicated relationship with her semi-autobiographical novel, and Gerwig does that justice in her adaptation. There's also plenty to say about Amy and her relationship with Laurie, but I'll get to that in the Women of the Month post...

Downton Abbey: The Movie (2019)

Despite my decision to only watch female-directed and female-written films in 2020, I ended up sitting down to see the coda of Julian Fellowes's period drama. But I trust Julian Fellowes when it comes to his treatment of women, as apart from a few dubious creative decisions (Lavinia's fridging, Anna's rape) for the most part he writes great female characters, and isn't afraid to have a) storylines about women WAY over forty, b) female characters who aren't particularly likeable, c) deep female friendships that exist to the benefit of both, and d) more than a few jabs at the patriarchy.

(I'll always appreciate that if Sybil had to die, Fellowes at least took the opportunity to make it a scathing indictment of the patriarchy, and there was no better moment than Lord Grantham solemnly declaring that women were of a more fragile disposition than men, little knowing that his wife, daughter and chambermaid were carrying a dead body through the house the night before).

ANYWAY, even though the season finale wrapped up everything to pretty much perfection, the entire cast is back for a movie, which... wraps everything up again. Revolving around Downton hosting the king and queen for the night, it plays out much like a holiday special, with the usual mix of minor struggles for the leads and mini-arcs from a few guest characters.

So we have an assassination attempt that is thwarted halfway through the movie and never mentioned again, a new relative that's never been mentioned before who may or may not leave her fortune to Lord Grantham, and a coup staged by the servants so that they might be the ones to wait upon the visiting royals.

Edith is still finding new and uninteresting ways to be miserable, but Thomas finally finds his people and a good man to love. Matthew Goode hilariously has only a minute of screentime, and the assorted children even less than that. The servants are also a bit shortchanged, having to share space with their royal household counterparts.

Carson's hand tremours are miraculously gone, as is Branson's romantic interest in Edith's editor, who is replaced by an entirely new love interest. Even Maggie Smith handing the reins over to Cora is replayed, only this time it's to Mary. Of the supporting cast, only Isobel's husband makes an appearance (no Rosamunde, no Rose, no Doctor Clarkson), which is a bit of a shame since the show finale made room for almost everyone.

At times Fellowes's (or at least the Crawleys') regard for the royals gets fairly ludicrous, what with former revolutionary Branson stopping an assassination attempt or Mary declaring that "God is a monarchist" based on the fine weather, but if you can stomach that then you can just sit back and enjoy this total fluff, which provides a brief glimpse into the lives of characters we followed for six years. Honestly though, this whole thing could have benefited from a murder.

Brooklyn 99: Season 5 (2017)

There's never much to say about comedies. If they're funny, then they're doing their job, and that's about it. Season five of Brooklyn 99 uses Jake and Amy's engagement as its overarching narrative, and as you can imagine there are plenty of hijinks along the way to their perfect wedding ceremony (which naturally goes all wrong).

I've never been hugely invested in their love story (I mean, I don't dislike it, but I'm not as excited about it as Boyle) though I did love the fact that attention-whoring Jake made sure his proposal wasn't some grand and public spectacle, but rather a private and quiet moment between the two of them. Nicely done.

This is also the season where Jake and Rosa are cleared of that bank robbery they were framed for in season four, Rosa comes out as bisexual, Gina returns from maternity leave, and Holt goes for the position of Commissioner. There are also reappearances from the Vulture, Doug Judy and DC Parlov, as well as Gina Rodriguez as Rosa's new love interest and Stirling K. Brown in an incredible guest performance as a murder suspect in a typical Bottle Episode that ends up being one of the show's best.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (2019)

So my New Year's Resolution to stick with female-lead, female-directed and female-written films and shows has begun, and I'm already running into a problem. I love genre television, and yet most of it is written by men. This leaves me with rom-coms, which aren't exactly my thing.

I had this on my to-be-watched list thanks to the involvement of Mindy Kaling and the presence of Nathalie Emmanuel, who deserved a nicely fluffy story after the horrors of Game of Thrones, but it doesn't have much in common with the wit and warmth of the original film (not withstanding a cameo by Andy MacDowell).

Four college friends reunite in London and end up on a whacky journey of self-discovery and love as they become entangled in all sorts of complicated relationships. There's not a lot to say about the plot; it's your basic rom-com fluff, which sadly isn't elevated to any great extent by the middling charisma of the actors or the stunning lack of chemistry (platonic, romantic or sexual) between any of them.

And besides their parody of Love Island (here called Love Chateau, involving a bunch of twenty-somethings wandering through an alpine lodge in bikinis) which is eventually supplanted in the ratings by something called Celebrity Suicide, it's not that funny either.

What it's really got going for it is the range of ages, races, religions, orientations and cultures that are on display here - everyone's differences are treated with respect and enjoyment, and integrated into the story without any overt song-and-dance about how great they are for doing so.

Lost in Space: Season 2 (2019)

The second season of Lost in Space is not as good as the first, though it's difficult to quantify how exactly. The cast is the same, the formula is the same, but something's missing. Perhaps the lack of first season novelty?

After being properly good and lost at the end of the last season, the Robinson family (plus two hanger-ons: Don and Doctor Smith) are promptly found by the rest of the colonists on their way to Alpha Centauri. So... they're not really lost in space for any length of time. What follow is the family and the colony coming up against two types of obstacles: survivalist problems and extraterrestrial ones.

The robot is found in due course, but naturally there are more out there, though whatever connection they've got to the shady government conspiracy that manages the Alpha Centauri program is still being kept under wraps. Doctor Smith is also on the loose, a fact that well and truly breaks the suspension of disbelief.

There's also an annoying shift from Maureen to John being the head of the family, up to and including a scene in which he totally circumvents her arguments on a course of action and puts his foot down on what they should do. Bwuh? The gender flip on who was in charge of the Robinsons was the highpoint of the first season, and now they're reversing it? Hard pass.  

The last episode ends on a cliff-hanger that promises future storylines that are much more interesting than anything that actually appears in this season, so let's hope a third season is announced soon.