Reading/Watching Log #55

It was a month of fairy tales – it usually is – as well as revisiting books from my far-distant childhood and enjoying two theatre productions that have reaped vast amounts of effusive praise from those lucky enough to have the money and proximity required to see them (perhaps if there’s one thing the lockdown has been good for, it’s spurring drama companies to release more of their productions onto various streaming services).

There’s Emily Carroll’s most recent graphic novel (I love it), the most popular new genre film on Netflix (it’s okay), and the Oscar-winning Korean film that everyone’s been talking about (totally lives up to the hype). Stories are subverted in the best possible ways – you know, in ways that enhance the narrative and not just for their own sakes – and familiar stories are given exciting new updates, whether it’s feminist perspectives, diverse casting or darker insights into traditional tales.

Extraordinary: A Story of an Ordinary Princess by Cassie Anderson

This was brand-new at the library, and I can’t resist brand-new books. It vibes pretty well with Patricia Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons and M.M. Kaye’s The Ordinary Princess, especially as the former deals with a princess being fake-kidnapped by a dragon, and the latter features a princess who is cursed (or blessed) at birth to be ordinary. This has both.

Princess Basil is the youngest of several sisters that have all been blessed by good fairies to embody virtues such as beauty, wisdom, dance and wisdom. Basil on the other hand was blessed with ordinariness by a chain-smoking fairy called Melvina, who thought she was doing her a favour. Years later and Basil’s mother is at her wit’s end, finally hiring a dragon to kidnap her daughter in the hopes it’ll finally spur a prince into marrying her.

Naturally, a journey of self-discovery awaits. We’ve had so many variations of this “not like the other princesses” narrative that we’re at the point where a well-groomed princess with traditionally feminine interests has become the shocking subversion, but this is a harmless enough read while it lasts. The art has a great colour palette, though I disliked the actual style (if a person’s eyes are just two black dots, they can’t emote). And as you can safely assume, it doesn’t fall into the trap of making Basil magically pretty or talented by the end of the story (of course it doesn’t, that’s another once-innovative twist that’s since become stock – not that I would have it otherwise); rather she finds satisfaction with who she already is.

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

I LOVE the work of Emily Carroll, and I’m currently introducing my co-workers to her comic books via YouTube dubs of her work (such as this one). With a title that’s surely meant to evoke Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, this tale begins with an anthropomorphic cat in a dress and coat arriving one dark and stormy night at the door of a castle, for reasons unclear and motives unknown.

The castle’s mistress is a beautiful dark-haired woman who warmly welcomes the cat into the warmth, though the danger she embodies is clear in every curve and line and shadow of her body. I honestly can’t say much more, as the thrill of any Carroll story is letting the heady atmosphere and visuals take you by the hand and pull you into the darkness. That sounds pretentious, but it really is what happens.

This story could have easily been included in her Through the Woods short-story collection (though admittedly they were quite folklorish, and this is more opulent and elegant, with allusions to Gothic Romance, Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter, and Charlotte Bronte) so be aware that this is very slim. I paced myself carefully, and I still clocked it in at under eight minutes.

But I felt the familiar dread crawl over me with each turn of the page, and her art style is as incredible as always. It’s definitely not a book you’d want to share with a child, as there’s violence and nudity galore, and Carroll deliberately keeps many elements of her story ambiguous. What does the cat want? Why is she here? Have she and the countess met before? The answers are there, but only if you look for them, which may take several re-reads and a willingness to utilize your own imagination (which is how stories should be read, but never underestimate some people’s need to have everything explained to them).

It’s not for everyone, but I loved it – and I’d love someone to discuss it with: hint hint.

Vasilisa the Wise by Kate Forsyth

This had been on my to-read list for a while, though I put it off because… well, I think I assumed that I’d already read every conceivable fairy tale in existence, which was deeply arrogant of me. Knowing that this focused on female-centric tales was enough to get me interested, even if it was well-trod territory, but I was stoked to discover that I was familiar with only two of the seven stories complied.

In her foreword, Forsyth states that her goal was to collect heroines whose stories didn’t revolve around getting rescued by handsome princes (again, par for the course these days), but who also used wit and kindness to achieve her goals (not just sword-fighting her way through obstacles). Furthermore, she also retells them in her own voice, rather than simply translate the likes of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.

I grew up with stories of Vasilia the Wise and Kate Crackernuts, but here are other stories from Norway, France, Scotland and Germany that I’d never heard of before, as well as a literary fairy tale from a 1877 collection by Mary de Morgan called “The Toy Princess” that’s very reminiscent of Hans Christian Anderson (but without the obvious foot fetish).

Illustrations are provided by Lorena Carrington, a photographic artist who uses shadow-profiles of human figures and various household/natural objects to create her images – and in a touching aside, we’re told the daughters of Carrington and Forsyth provided the silhouettes of the various heroines. It’s a great little collection; I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would.

Fairytales for Feisty Girls by Susannah McFarlane

It was with some amusement that I realized the American publication of this book is actually called Fairytales for Fearless Girls. It would seem that someone behind-the-scenes has the same aversion to the word “feisty” as I do, as so often it’s used to describe characters that are meant to be spirited and gutsy, though in actuality are just plain obnoxious.

Thankfully this collection of four retold fairy tales has a better grasp of what makes a heroine appealing, and the contemporary (or “woke”) messages are folded into the familiar beats of the old fairy tales without sacrificing major plot-points or characterization. Basically, these girls not waiting around for a prince to rescue them, but they’re not picking up swords or weapons either.

As such, Rapunzel is reimagined as a young inventor who eventually cuts her own hair in order to get the tools she needs to escape the tower, Red Riding Hood is a budding botanist that uses her know-how of herbal remedies to outwit the wolf,  Cinderella goes to the ball but then uses the remaining glass slipper to leave her stepmother’s home and fund a wildlife preserve, and Thumbelina gets through her hardships due to her sense of humour and love of jokes.

They’re fun, cute stories, but a couple also manage to make some genuinely interesting tweaks to the old stories: when Rapunzel escapes her prison, she leaves a bouquet of rapunzel flowers at the foot of the tower which (completely unknowingly) releases her from her parents’ debt to Mother Gothel – they having stolen rapunzel from the witch’s garden and given up their baby as repayment. It’s a neat little moment that has a full-circle quality to it.

I also appreciated the journal entries in the Red Riding Hood story, which contain the properties of the woodland flowers she spends so much time picking (not just as a gift for her grandmother, but as part of her scientific research). It’s a sweet little book, with modern updates that actually blend in well with the traditional tales.

The Merry Spinster by Daniel Mallory Ortberg

I’ve loved reading Daniel Mallory Ortberg’s articles on The Toast back in the day, so knowing about the existence of a fairy tale-based book of short stories was a cause for some excitement. Perhaps the most profound thing he ever wrote (at least in regards to the effect it had on me) was “never let an emotionally needy person into your life – pity is the enemy.” It’s the trap we all fall into at some point, and it’s the easiest way to entangle yourself up in a toxic relationship you can’t escape from.

That sentiment is also very much the central theme of this collection of fairy tales – though it’s not just the likes of Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid that get played with; Wind in the Willows and The Velveteen Rabbit also get a dark makeover, with deep explorations into the manipulative side of love.

So poor Mr Toad is verbally abused by Ratty and Mole, Beast gaslights and guilt-trips Belle, and the Velveteen Rabbit demonstrates its love for a little boy by leeching away all his health and happiness. None of it is overtly sexual or violent; it’s the emotional manipulation that’s truly terrifying, and what gives this book the subtitle: “Tales of Everyday Horror”. Nothing is scarier than a person with an emotional stranglehold over you.

You don’t have to have read the material upon which these stories are based to understand them (I’ve never read The Velveteen Rabbit and that ended up being my favourite story) but there are a few stories based on ballads and Bible verses that were a bit lost on me. I’d say about half the stories in the collection landed for me, and there’s a tendency to overcrowd the prose with pithy asides (usually in parenthesis, like this one) but also a sharp eye turned towards feminism, queerness, and gender issues.

Fandom – and by extension – society, is still finding its way around issues of consent and violence and toxic relationships, and this book helps illustrate just how murky those lines can be. In another story, every awful thing that one character does to another easily could be refitted into a romantic context (of the “I’m doing this for your own good” variety).

The Summer Before by Ann M. Martin

The Netflix series put me in the spirit, but the sheer amount of Babysitter’s Club books that exist in the world was a little daunting – until I found out that Martin had recently (that is, in 2010) written a prequel to Kirsty’s Great Idea. That’s the ticket. Alternating point-of-view chapters between Kirsty, Mary Anne, Claudia and Stacey give us some insight into what was happening in their lives just prior to the club’s inception: Kirsty is hoping her father will turn up for her twelfth birthday, Mary Anne is feeling stifled by her father’s strict rules, Claudia gets her first boyfriend and feels herself growing away from her childhood friends, and Stacey is leaving New York.

It’s all completely non-essential, and doesn’t cover any ground that isn’t already summarized in the first book of the series, but it is fun to dip into their lives at this point in time, knowing they’re on the cusp of greatness. There’s a real poignancy to things such as Kirsty grappling with her father’s absence, Claudia feeling the first pangs of adolescence, the original trio working to keep their friendship intact, and Stacey and Claudia meeting for the first time (though it turns out that Stacey and Mary Anne had first contact).

It’s interesting to ponder that The Summer Before came out in in 2010, a direct prequel to a book published in 1986, over two decades earlier. Astonishingly, the continuity holds up, with mentions of or appearances from the supporting cast (Laine Cummings, Alan Grey, various Thomas aunts, uncles and cousins that send birthday gifts to Kirsty) that are consistent to how they were all characterized the way back in the eighties. They even reference a mortifying bedwetting episode that Stacey endured during a sleepover, (which I recall wasn’t even part of the original series, only related in one of the “super specials”) and I have to admit feeling a lump in my throat at the fact that Louie (Kirsty’s collie dog) is still alive. It even takes us all the way up to that infamous essay on decorum courtesy of Mr Redmont.

It’s gotten me thumbing through my old copies of the original series, and what stands out in lieu of having any time to actually read them, is Hodges Soileau’s iconic cover-art. They’ll almost invariably depict the girls in the midst of some activity or project or party, and what makes them so appealing is how happy they are – in themselves and with each other. Reading these books as a kid, there was perhaps always a twinge of longing and envy at what the BSC had with each other: a support system that would never let you down. They had their parents and their siblings and their boyfriends, but ultimately those girls were a world unto themselves.

Dark Secrets: 1 and 2 by Elizabeth Chandler

Fun story that only I care about: years and years ago I read Chandler’s Don’t Tell, and did a review for it on Amazon. Then I totally forgot everything about the story – the protagonist’s name, the title, the author – leaving me with only the potent atmosphere that Chandler managed to conjure. Perhaps it was because I read the book while on holiday, but there was something about this story that always stuck with me; specifically the small township where it was set.

But there was no way of accessing my review – I couldn’t look it up, and the formatting of Amazon’s profile page means I would have had to scroll down through every review I’d written since 2001 (since it was one of the first reviews I ever wrote). It was lost to time, even as I knew it was out there on the internet somewhere.

Then I found an old USB drive lying around, and on going through its contents, realized that at some point in the past I had cut-and-paste a document full of my Amazon reviews… and there it was: Don’t Tell by Elizabeth Chandler.

I made a request to buy at the library, then had to wait through the entirety of lockdown, and then finally had my hands on a copy of the story I hadn’t read since I was a teenager.

And yeah, it’s fine. Nothing ground-breaking. Even the setting, which resonated with me so vividly as an adolescence, wasn’t particularly memorable this time around. As it happens, the story has been republished along with three others in the continuity across two volumes, containing two stories each: Legacy of Lies, Don’t Tell, No Time to Die and The Deep End of Fear.

What they all have in common is that they’re set in the small town of Wisteria, Maryland, with a young female protagonist that has to solve a murder and grapple with what may be supernatural occurrences that help or hinder her. A few locations and side-characters pop up in each story, but otherwise they’re completely standalone, and can be read out of order.

There’s reincarnation, poltergeist activity, psychic readings and a possible possession – as well as that inevitable element of all YA books: the troubled young love interest who may or may not be trustworthy, but who comes through for the heroine just in time for the big kiss in the final pages. You know, whodunnit books probably shouldn't stick with a pattern so obvious that readers can immediately rule out one of the suspects.

They’re fun, creepy, entertaining books… though the details of my twenty-year search for them probably interests me more.

Jewel Kingdom: 1 – 4 by Jahnna Malcolm

Okay, so these were first published in the late nineties, when I was too old to ask for books about princesses and fairy tales from my parents… but I knew these books existed and dearly wanted to read them. I think I may have even written my own stories based on the concept surrounding this series: four princesses that rule over different corners of a magical kingdom, each one identifiable by a gemstone designation (the Ruby Princess, the Diamond Princess, etc).

But now I’m old, and a children’s librarian, so I’m allowed to read whatever I want without getting embarrassed about it. Plus the first four books have just been reprinted and they’re ADORABLE.

So I took them home and settled down and found that they’re cute enough, though a far cry from (let’s say) the work of Enid Blyton, which they most strongly resemble. Funny how a facsimile of something you don’t like very much makes you appreciate it more, despite its multitude of flaws. In any case, Blyton could have easily told these stories with a much greater sense of tweeness and “jolly-goods!” but also more elegance and sense of purpose.

The gist is this: four young cousin-princesses are leaving Jewel Palace for the four corners of the kingdom to rule over their various magical subjects: Roxanne to the Red Mountains, Sabrina to the Blue Lake, Emily to the Greenwoods and Demetra to the White Winterland. Where are their parents? Why are children being put in charge? Why is any of this happening? We don’t know and it doesn’t matter, as each book focuses on one of the girls and her adventures (which usually involve combating the evil minions of the kingdom’s previous ruler).

One difference in the reprint is that three of the four princesses have been race lifted, which is a welcome change from the series’ original whiteness: now Roxanne is Latino, Demetra is First Nation, and Sabrina is Black – and Sumiti Collina’s illustrations are so cute.

Each book took me about five minutes to read, so it’s not like they were terribly time-consuming, but such an interesting premise makes me wish the stories were better than they are.  

Hamilton (Richard Rodgers Theatre)

What’s to say about Hamilton that hasn’t already been said? It’s nigh-impossible to talk about any cultural phenomenon, simply because everyone else is already talking about it. But I can say this: even having listened to the soundtrack a number of times, the difference in watching the performance on stage is breath-taking.

The energy and charisma of the cast accounts for at least forty percent of why the show became so ragingly popular, and being able to see things such as Daveed Diggs’ sheer verve or Phillipa Soo’s pure emotion is an absolute gift (the song “Breathless” is catchy when listened to, but watching Soo sing is while she’s running back and forth across the stage is incredible).

It also brings attention to elements that are easily overlooked, such as the Bullet (a member of the ensemble whose interaction with the leads always heralds their deaths) or Christopher Jackson giving George Washington an expression of shame when Eliza sings about how she “speaks out against slavery”.

Perhaps nothing will match a live performance (especially with this particular cast) but a televised production assists the audience in knowing where to look, even allowing for close-ups and bird’s-eye views of the stage that would be impossible for anyone sitting in the auditorium. For this we can thank director and producer Thomas Kail, who edited together this cut of Hamilton from across three different performances, making the wise choice to leave in the applause and laughter of the audience.

In fact, there are a couple of ingenious moments: early on in the show’s second act, there’s a shot that depicts the hand of the composer quickly rising above stage-level during a particularly dramatic musical cue – it initially seems like a gaffe, but later (as part of a joke) Jefferson ends up handing the composer a copy of the Reynolds pamphlet, and we realize that the earlier shot was to prep us as to where the composer was situated and his proximity to the stage.

***

Controversial opinion: I didn’t like Eliza’s gasp at the end. I actually originally interpreted it as a cry of grief when she learns about her husband’s death, though my friend who watched it with me thought it was her death knell at the end of her life. It certainly didn’t look joyful, as others seem to think, and the interpretation that it’s either Eliza looking down from Heaven or becoming cognizant of the audience in front of her is too shmaltzy and sentimental to me (much like Alexander reappearing during her last song to take her hand, when he should have left the stage after his death and not returned till the curtain call, thereby letting the poor woman FINALLY have her moment in the limelight).

I dunno, it’s like they wanted to end on a dramatic note, instead of just the quiet fading away of light and voices, which would have worked much better with the material. There’s a heart-rending poignancy about Eliza’s line: “when my time is up, have I done enough?” in front of an audience that’s aware she’s unknowingly responsible for the spectacle we’ve just witnessed, and breaking the fourth wall in order to acknowledge that robs the moment of its power.

I know, I know, everyone’s a critic.

I truly hope this leads to more live performances being filmed and released to the wider public. It certainly wouldn’t stop me from wanting to see the shows live, and for those who simply don’t have the resources to go, they’re finally given a chance to enjoy the theatre. Fingers crossed that Hadestown is next…

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (National Theatre)

The other big theatrical production of recent years that got a lot of positive buzz on social media was the National Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it’s just as charming and innovative and delightful as everyone declared (that said, the floor seats look terrible in the sense that there aren’t any, just several raised platforms that the audience have to manoeuvre around as the performers move from one to another, which not only would be a nightmare on the neck, but make any unobstructed view a rather tenuous prospect).

The play is a popular one, but also quite a tough nut to crack, with some rather unpleasant overtones in its treatment of the female characters: Amazon Queen Hippolyta is being forced to marry Theseus after he defeated her in battle (“I won thy love doing thee injuries”), Titania is humiliated by Oberon into falling in love with a donkey-headed man because she won’t give up the child that was entrusted to her by one of her dear friends, and Helena inexplicably thinks the quickest way to Demetrius’s heart is to… betray her best friend that’s trying to escape her engagement to him…? Girl, what?

There are certainly worse things that befall female characters throughout Shakespeare, but it’s difficult to update this stuff to modern sensibilities, and I suspect Helena is a lost cause (Calista Flockhart came the closest to succeeding back in the nineties, and only by portraying her as an endearing nitwit). But the genius of this production is that the roles of Oberon (Oliver Chris) and Titania (Gwendoline Christie) are gender-flipped – not in the sense that she plays Oberon and he plays Titania, but that each gets the other’s lines.

Now it is Titania who wants the changeling boy and seeks to punish Oberon for his reticence on the matter, and Oberon who falls passionately in love with poor Bottom once his head has been transformed into that of an ass. What’s more, the two actors also play Theseus and Hippolyta (the latter being clearly depicted as someone who is not happy about her impending nuptials) which brings an extra layer to their interactions and dynamic.

It’s also an oddly-structured play – just when the lovers are reconciled and the marriage vows are said and the audience ready to go home, we’re still in for another half-hour of Bottom and his acting troupe performing their play. It’s funny, but hoo boy, does it lag.

As with Hamilton, the broadcast means that we’re given the most comfortable seats in the house, and the luxury of noticing many of the details that would have otherwise been lost in the immersive audience experience (such as the costuming, which goes from staid and oppressive to wild and free as the minutes tick by). And as funny as Bottom, Puck and (surprisingly) Oberon is, it’s Gwendoline Christie who proves to be the standout. She’s just a goddess, isn’t she. There’s such a strong positive energy about her that’s so radiant and good that even having never met her, I would trust her with my life. She’s clearly having the time of her life on this particular stage, and her joyful excitement is contagious.

Ophelia (2018)

When an unknown actress such as Daisy Ridley (who only has a few credits to her name prior to 2015) ends up in a film franchise like Star Wars, there must be no end to the doubts, pressure and second-guessing of choosing an appropriate role to follow the one that made you a household name. Only a handful of people in the world go through such a decision (the likes of Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson for example) and the competing factors of visibility, opportunity, not getting typecast, choosing a decent script, trying something new, and sticking with a safe bet would probably do my head in.

For her first starring role after Star Wars (Murder on the Orient Express was an ensemble piece), Ridley went for a retelling of Hamlet, as told through the eyes of Ophelia. On paper, it seems like a perfectly sound choice: Shakespeare gives the project gravitas, the flip in perspective gives it a feminist bent, the YA trappings hits her target audience, and the character itself is a gift to actresses everywhere. I’ve heard it said that any serious stage actress must play Ophelia in her youth and Lady Macbeth in her prime, and the character herself is not only a quintessential figure of Western literature (so iconic in her frailty and madness that TV Tropes literally has a trope called The Ophelia) but also one worthy of a closer look.

So… what went wrong? There’s nothing overtly bad about Ophelia, in fact the acting is strong, the visuals are gorgeous and some of the tweaks given to the material are intriguing, but on many levels it is remarkably silly. That’s because the play itself, deprived of Shakespeare’s language (or worse, replaced with paraphrased Shakespeare), is in fact remarkably silly. Everyone is stupid, and everyone dies. There is a ghost, maybe. Claudius may as well have “I am a villain” written on his forehead, but nobody seems to notice. Hamlet has an adventure with pirates that takes place entirely off-screen. Removing this story from the context of Shakespeare’s language – the soliloquies, the dialogue, the famous quotes – is fatal.

Hamlet is also Shakespeare’s longest play, takes approximately three hours to perform, and is usually heavily abridged as a result. Ophelia clocks in at just under two hours, which means most of the events of the play are truncated within an inch of their life – I honestly didn’t even grasp who Polonius was until about halfway through the film. It also has to find room to include Hamlet and Ophelia’s history together, which is about as deep as a paddling pool, the kind of “romance” in which you doubt the couple even like each other let alone love each other, and includes scenes such as Ophelia insisting that she’s just not into Hamlet, which are followed by her agreeing to meet him on the parapets and make out.

The chemistry is tepid at best, and the two only have about three fraught interactions before getting hitched. Even weirder is that Horatio is clearly the better man: immediately turning away when he and Hamlet come across Ophelia bathing in the river, creating a distraction so she can get away without interference, comforting her after her father’s death, and understanding her coded messages to him as she plans her escape from Denmark (thereby saving her life after she fakes her death and is buried).

They also have to make room for Gertrude and Claudius, not to mention Gertrude’s hitherto unmentioned sister, which means they whizz through the events of the play at an astonishing pace, with no particular resonance affixed to any of the relationships. Suffice to say, if you’re unfamiliar with Hamlet, you’ll probably have no idea what’s going on here.

Ophelia is reimagined as a typical YA heroine – oh, let me count the ways. There’s a good slathering of “not like the other girls”, including the fact that she can read (this is apparently extraordinary, even though it really isn’t, especially considering she’s surrounded by noble ladies at court), and is self-described as “a wilful girl who always spoke my mind” even though she’s totally demure and largely passive throughout the course of the film (YA stories like this will say their female leads are headstrong and proactive, but always chicken out when it comes to delivering on that promise).

Still, I will never completely condemn a story that takes one of the quintessential examples of a fridged female character and gives her the chance at life. Though it never becomes any sort of feminist triumph, there is a certain satisfaction to be derived from the scene in which a disguised Ophelia (having faked her death) reveals herself to Hamlet just before his misguided duel with Laertes, and asks that he come away with her. When he refuses, she simply washes her hands of him and walks away, giving herself the chance at a fresh and more rewarding life.

As a vehicle for Daisy Ridley, the film is… fine? I guess? Her performance isn’t bad, though she never does anything truly impressive, and the famous madness scene (a gift to any performer) falls completely flat. She looks stunningly like Kiera Knightley in some shots, making me wonder for the umpteenth time why they cast such a Natalie Portman lookalike as a character who wasn’t going to be her granddaughter, but though Ophelia’s body language and speech patterns are very unlike that of Rey's, the part as-written is more gristle than grit.

Still, she gets to float about in beautiful costumes for a while, with colours and imagery taken straight from the paintings of John William Waterhouse and John Everett Millias.

Clive Owen and Naomi Scott are Claudius and Gertrude, two actors that never quite reached A-lister status (or at least weren’t able to maintain it) in Hollywood, in roles that seem to signal the twilight of their careers. Also present is Devon Terrell and Sebastian de Souza, which is amusing since I also coincidentally watched them in Cursed and The Great this month (I can’t say why, but I’m always tickled when this happens) as well as Tom Felton as Laertes (not an evil jerk this time around).

Honestly, the main draw is the Sapphic energy between Ophelia and Gertrude, with the latter taking Ophelia under her wing as a girl, only for the relationship to fracture when the Oedipal love triangle gets underway. Oh how I wish they’d leaned more into this across the movie, though at least we’re treated to Gertrude reclining in bed, chewing on her thumb while she gets Ophelia to read erotic poetry to her.

Give it a try, as it’s enough to just soak in the atmosphere. It vibes well with Amanda Seyfried’s Red Riding Hood (2011) so if you enjoyed that you’ll probably like this too.

The Farewell (2019)

I’ve had this one on my radar for a while, and spotting it on DVD at the library made me pick it up. Starting Awkwafina in what (I think; don’t quote me) is her first non-comedic role, and inspired by real events experienced by writer/director Lulu Wang (as the foreword says: “based on an actual lie”) it’s the story of a Chinese-born American woman who returns home to see her grandmother after learning she’s terminally ill. Her parents don’t want her there because her face is too expressive – you see, the catch is that no one in the family is prepared to tell Nai Nai that she has cancer, instead they’ve assembled under the pretence that her grandson is getting married.

I have to admit to a deep, weary eye-roll on learning the particulars of this. Obviously the story is deliberately centred around this profound East/West culture clash and the ethical implications of not telling a person how ill they are (the course of the film even mentions that such a thing is illegal in America) but honestly… why do people put themselves through this sort of thing? Everyone is strained and unhappy, and though the expected twist (that Nai Nai is perfectly aware of her condition throughout) never transpires, the end credits made me want to scream: turns out that six years on from these events, the real Nai Nai is still alive and kicking. What on earth was the point of this elaborate deception??

Because of course, the excuse the family uses to go and see Nai Nai for what (they think) is the last time, is the marriage between her grandson and his girlfriend of three months. I was under the assumption that this was a fake wedding – which in itself is utterly ludicrous – but apparently… it was real?? They made two people get married?? Who barely knew each other?? What the fuck is wrong with this family??

I have no idea if the wedding angle is true to life or not (honestly, I’m afraid to look it up) but it brings into focus what is perhaps the biggest problem of the film: it’s clearly focused on the wrong character. Awkwafina is clearly the director stand-in and the character upon whom she's based, but I spent the whole film madly curious about the bride of Nai Nai’s grandson, who goes along with the deception so that her boyfriend’s family can get their sham family reunion. Whether the wedding is real or not, the sacrifice this girl makes is astounding (especially since Nai Nai is somewhat dismissive of her). 

While Awkwafina grapples with her guilt surrounding the deception, I was desperate to learn more about the young bride and her feelings about the madness unfolding around her. How does it feel to be the excuse a family uses to see their dying matriarch? For your wedding to revolve around someone else entirely? To not even be able to communicate properly with anyone but your boyfriend while all this is going on? Who is this woman and why did she agree to do this??? Clearly she should have been the entry-point into this story.

But I digress. It’s a little slow-moving at times, though with plenty of interesting insights and commentary throughout – yet for me, all respect to other cultures aside, the decision to keep a woman’s understanding of her own medical history from her is so obviously wrong (not to mention totally pointless, given she’s still kicking) that I couldn’t really enjoy this.

Parasite (2019)

The hype is real; get your hands on Parasite. I went in completely cold, and that’s the best way to enjoy this – to know as little as possible before you start. So be warned, if you haven’t seen it, you may want to stop reading now…

The Kim family are dirt-poor, living in an underground apartment in South Korea and scraping along by folding pizza boxes for a pittance. Then opportunity knocks: youngest son Ki-woo is asked by a friend to take over his English tutorials to the high-school daughter of the upscale Park family. Ki-woo leaps at the chance, but while scoping out the stunningly beautiful home, realizes that there’s a chance to ingratiate the rest of his family into their household staff.

It starts with a simple deception: his sister poses as an American-educated art student who can give art therapy lessons to the Parks’ somewhat troubled younger son, but things get considerably more serious when they frame the family’s chauffeur and housekeeper for crimes they didn’t commit so that Ki-woo can leap in and suggest highly-qualified replacements (his parents, of course). At this point, it’s clear who the “parasite” in the film’s title refers to, especially when the Parks leave for a camping trip and the Kims take full advantage of the house’s facilities in their absence.

But then there’s a knock at the door…

I can’t bring myself to say anymore, but what follows had me sitting up on the couch, screeching: “whhaaaaatttt?!” It’s definitely a film you want to watch at least twice, the first to get your mind blown and the second to pick up on all the little clues that were strewn about the dialogue and set.

It’s hilarious, it’s horrifying, it’s poignant and heart-breaking. You can’t help but root for the Kims, even as they ruthlessly manipulate the Park family (in fact, they’re so good at conning their way into the house that it’s a slight mystery as to why they didn’t start hustling sooner) and Ki-jung (So-dam Park) in particular is a delight – cold-reading her employers, setting her fake backstory to an easy-to-remember tune, getting into character whenever she steps into the house…

And of course director Bong Joon-Ho has plenty to say about capitalism, social inequity, and the indignities suffered by people across the economic spectrum. There are so many layers to parse through, so many double-meanings and hidden clues – it’s one of the richest films I’ve seen in a long time. I’m going to let it percolate for a while, as it’s definitely not something you can watch twice in quick succession, but I’m looking forward to seeing it again soon.

The Old Guard (2020)

My Tumblr dashboard was in raptures over The Old Guard, so I dutifully checked it out, and… it’s fine. I would say I was overhyped, but I didn’t really give it much thought before tuning in, and… like I said, it’s fine. A perfect vehicle for Charlize Theron’s particular strengths, some fun characters and cool premise, but ultimately it has more of the potential of an interesting story than an interesting story itself.

Charlize Theron is one of four immortals. Although they aware of an expiration date on their rejuvenation abilities, they’ve been kicking around since at least the Crusades (and Theron even longer). Across the centuries they’ve hired themselves out as mercenaries, choosing their missions carefully and constantly trying to hide their longevity from the rest of the world. Naturally, this is the story about how that façade finally crumbles and they become the targets of a greedy pharmaceutical executive, coinciding with the convenient discovery of a new immortal called Nile, to whom they can sadly emote and provide exposition to.

Look, there’s nothing wrong here. The explosions are loud, the actions sequences are fun, and the talent on display is rather breath-taking. They got Chiwetel Ejiofor, for God’s sake! But it feels more like the first chapter of an ongoing franchise than a standalone movie in its own right, and what do you know – the very final scene confirms this, with a sequel hook that (as with many franchise kick-starters) made me wish we’d gotten the plot for the more-interesting sequel in the first movie.

Noughts and Crosses (2020)

SPOILERS

I read Malorie Blackman’s novel a few months back, so checking out the miniseries was inevitable, though having aired before the latest surge of the Black Lives Matter movement probably worked out in its favour considering it's predicated upon the extremely risky narrative territory of: “what if the oppressors were the oppressed?” Blackman is herself a Black woman, and so can handle the pitfalls and undercurrents of such charged material with a degree of finesse that’s lost on many a well-meaning but totally clueless white author (remember that Save the Pearls mess?) but it’s hard not to watch this without bracing yourself against the back of the couch.

The first problem is that an England in which a Black population has cultural and political superiority is naturally what white supremacists are so bloody terrified of. Stories of course should never cease to exist in order to placate such people for fear of retaliation, but you don’t need me to tell you that (as with any fictional “oppressor switch” dynamic) there are people who will respond to this as though it’s proof of an impending “white genocide” or other such idiocy.

Which leads to the second problem – that despite flipping the script and depicting white people as an ethnic minority… well, it’s still very much their story. Even when the roles are reversed, they get to command the screen-time, audience sympathy, and the compelling moral quandaries of the story. Aside from the female lead, most of the Black characters are either overtly hostile and uninterested in achieving any sort of equilibrium with the people they’ve colonized, or just minor figures in the background.

Honestly, it’s hard to know what to make of this. Who is it for? What is it trying to say? Is it meant to scare white viewers and empower Black ones? Both those things? There is a certain revelation in seeing Black culture displayed so prominently in this particular setting: natural hair, African styles, traditional languages and colourful décor (in fact, being a visual medium means the show can easily surpass the book in this regard) but none of it is given a huge amount of AU historical context.

There were some interesting departures from the book, the biggest one being that Callum ends up evading capture and surviving to live another day with Seph (though it’s hard to know what an intelligent, educated, privileged young woman like Seph is going to get out of an unstable relationship with a man who can’t offer her anything – I suspect that’s a good reason why he was killed off in the novel) and an invented subplot involving Seph’s dad having fathered an illegitimate child with a white woman, which doesn’t go anywhere very interesting.

So… huh. It’s a thing that exists, though is certainly a very different experience now than it was less than two months ago.

The Great: Season 1 (2020)

I know precious little about Catherine the Great, in fact if you had asked me about her I would have gotten as far as “Russia” and stopped. On beginning this series by Tony McNamara (also behind The Favourite, which means I trusted him with his female characters) I was actually half-preparing myself for Catherine’s secret coup to end in humiliation and bloodshed and imprisonment, and so was astonished when she actually pulls it off (perhaps I did know that subconsciously; I mean, I was planning to watch Helen Mirren in Catherine the Great next, so I obviously knew she was still kicking many years later).

Elle Fanning is the titular Catherine, and the show’s biggest asset. She’s intelligent and educated and witty and steely, but plays the part with all the naivety and sunshine of her most famous role: Princess Aurora in the Maleficent films. It’s a stroke of genius, both how she’s characterized and the way it derives comedy from the absurd situations that a woman of her demeanour finds herself in (on the verge of assassinating her husband, she has to halt once he unexpectedly presents her with Voltaire, because of course it would be too barbaric to murder anyone with such an illustrious thinker in the room. She tries again once he's gone).

It also means that the show doesn’t shy away from Catherine’s portrayal of a woman in a man’s world – a brilliant woman, but also a sheltered one. An opportunity to seize the throne halfway through the season presents itself, only for an excited Catherine to realize she actually knows jack-shit about ruling a country. Her idiotic husband skates by on primogeniture, male privilege and a council of people who actually know what they’re doing, but Catherine walks away from the experience realizing that she’s going to need a lot more than just enthusiasm and righteousness to win people to her cause.

Nicholas Hoult also scores a fantastic role as Emperor Peter, a horrifically narcissistic monarch who strolls through life convinced that everyone loves him and he can do no wrong (it’s not difficult to create correlations with real life at this point) yet there’s something pitiful in his neediness and ineptitude – when you look at his upbringing and the people who surround him, it’s difficult to envision how he could have ended up any other way.

Oh, and Sacha Dhawan as Count Orlo, playing hilariously against the type he’s now best known for: the unhinged Master on Doctor Who. You wouldn’t think it was the same person.

Throw in a court full of schemers and backstabbers, and it’s a tale ripe for political/romantic intrigue that’s set apart from the others by lieu of it being hilariously funny. Peter’s boundless ego, his aunt’s insistence that she can train butterflies, Count Grigor’s unnoticed downward spiral at the fact his wife is sleeping with the Emperor, the acidic comments of Catherine’s handmaiden Marial… it’s all solid gold. Covering its arse by proclaiming it’s an “occasionally true” story, the show can bounce along without worrying too much about anything other than being entertaining.

It even manages to handle the topic of marital rape with a deft hand: Catherine’s consummation with Peter is more disappointing than traumatic, and the matter-of-fact conversations with her maid Marial afterwards lets us know she’s taking it in her stride. It’s such difficult territory to tread, but the show manages to find an elegant way of dealing with the reality of unpleasant sex that’s consensual enough that its female lead can retain her dignity and sense of agency.

It’s a great watch, by turns funny or poignant, clever or tragic. Every performer is as whip-sharp as the scripts they’re given, so bring on season two.  

The Babysitter’s Club: Season 1 (2020)

It was at age ten that I discovered Ann M. Martin’s The Babysitter’s Club, and by age twelve, my parents had been advised by my teacher that it was probably a good idea to stop buying me books in the series so that I might branch out into more complex and lengthy offerings. Naturally I was outraged, but in hindsight – yeah, it was probably a good call.

The series is largely fluff, and ghost-writers certainly took over from Ann Martin after she hit book thirty, and yet there were two reasons the stories remain so beloved: the emphasis on female friendships (amidst a group of girls that were diverse not just in terms of their backgrounds, but their distinct personalities) and their young entrepreneurial enterprises (as Lisa Simpson put it: “I love everything about the world of babysitting. The responsibility, the obligations, the pressure...” Watching these girls hold meetings, schedule jobs, act professionally, and get paid was truly a thrill – though in all those books, I don’t think we’re ever told what their going rates were).

In the world of The Babysitter’s Club, the task of looking after young children wasn’t just a “girl’s afterschool hobby”, but a serious responsibility and a rewarding career path. (To quote Lisa Simpson again: “it’s a sacred trust”).

And of course, between jobs the series could handle all sorts of other issues: family troubles, first crushes, academic challenges, school events, and so on. They even tackled such things as divorce, step-families, death, racism, chronic illness, special needs, poverty and child abuse (rest assured that the adolescents quickly call in adult assistance on that last one). Then there were the mystery and ghost stories, and the larger vacation specials, the spin-off books, the board games…

Suffice to say that I cleared out my calendar to binge-watch Netflix’s take on the material. And for the most part, it’s really great! The casting is spot-on, especially among the leads and their parents, which include Alicia Silverstone as Kirsty’s slightly dipsy mother (rest assured, they can’t resist a Clueless shout-out), Mark Feuerstein as her gregarious future stepfather, Jessica Elaina Eason as Dawn’s hippish mother, and – in a casting coup – Marc Evan Jackson as Mary Anne’s father. He embodies the sheer essence of Richard Spier (probably the most distinctive of the books’ adult characters) to perfection.

But it’s the girls themselves that carry the show, and the casting is spot-on. After getting over how young they all look (when you read these books at ten, the lofty age of thirteen seems to be the cusp of adulthood, and the cover-art always depicted the gang as eighteen-year olds at least) there is so much joy in seeing what feels like your childhood friends come to life.

But I have to say that Sophie Grace as Kirsty is a delight – she gets in some scathing proto-feminist commentary (according to her, school balls are a boy’s “first chance to disappoint us”) but also moments of abject vulnerability: her insecurity about her missing father, and later her confusion over what “feminine products” are. Yeah, that was me at age twelve. Best of all, they’re not afraid to make Kirsty a bit of a shit at times: short-tempered and impatient at set-backs, but ultimately the friend that will never let you down; the glue that binds all these girls together. What Kermit the Frog is to the Muppet Show, so is Kirsty is to the Babysitter’s Club. The first time I saw her in her trademark baseball cap, I felt a little teary.

The half-hour episodes mean the stories have to be truncated, and there’s absolutely none of the B-plots (usually involving a babysitting challenge) that were such a fundamental part of the books. This means that things like the Phantom Phone Caller, which is a book-long mystery in which the girls come up with traps and codes and signals to protect themselves from a caller that turns out to be one of their classmates, has been reduced to a metaphor – turns out the real phantom phone caller is just the negative voices in Claudia’s head. Umm… okay.

There’s also remarkably little babysitting done throughout these episodes, which is probably down to the obvious problem: these kids are going to grow up fast (as opposed to the books, where they remained children for over one hundred books).

But you can tell that the writers have read and loved the series, for the scripts are full of nods and Easter eggs, from the fact the Papadakis family (never seen) live next-door to Watson, to Kirsty having to write an essay on decorum as punishment for speaking out in class (though sometimes it gets a little out of hand: Mimi didn’t called her youngest granddaughter “my Claudia” every time).

There are some changes too: the Pike triplets are no longer triplets, Dawn’s father is now gay (I wave a long-distance farewell to Carol Olsen), and for some reason Mrs Porter is Dawn’s aunt (perhaps a nod to the first Little Sister book, given how Karen responds to her?) More interestingly, Jenny Prezzioso is now a transgender girl called Bailey, whose identity becomes an issue in the first Mary Anne-centric episode. And before the usual suspects start moaning, The Babysitter’s Club has always been a pretty woke series (albeit clumsily at times), and I’m sure this particular topic would have been tackled by Martin herself had it been more mainstream in the nineties.

There are also some unintentionally funny bits, like how the weather is perpetually terrible. The episode set in Sea City has the kids playing on the beach in heavy winds and about five layers of clothing, and it’s raining constantly at summer camp, to the point where the costumer clearly took pity on everyone and provided rain jackets.

Basically, I loved it, and it’s all the more special since I’ve just introduced one of my favourite library patrons to the series (she’s currently on book five). Perhaps more than anything, the series’ longevity is down to each girl having a trait – positive or negative – that any reader could conceivably relate to. At age ten, I could see myself in all the girls: Kirsty’s innovation and bossiness, Mary Anne’s abject shyness, Claudia’s creativity and lack of scholarly drive, Dawn’s activism and emotional maturity, Mallory the bookworm, Jessi the dancer, Stacey’s… okay, I never did relate much to Stacey. She was the cool girl, something I never came within twenty miles of being.